KEW YORK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



A DISCO IT ESE 



DELITERKD BEFORK THE 



New York Historical Society, 



ON ITS SIXTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY, 



NOVEMBER 20, 1866. 



Rev. SAMUEL OSGOOD. D.D. 



PUBLISHED BY OKDER OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 



NEW YORK: 
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 

MDCCCI.XTII, 



fiu 

.44- 
.Oil 



Officers of the Society, 1867. 



PRESIDENT, 

HAMILTON FISH, LL. D. 

FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT, 

THOMAS DE WITT, D.D. 

SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT, 

BENJAMIN ROBERT WINTHROP. 

FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

GEORGE BANCROFT, LL. D. 

DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD, LL. D. 

RECORDING SECRETARY, 

ANDREW WARNER. 

TREASURER, 

BENJAMIN H. FIELD. 

LIBRARIAN, 

GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 



FIRST CLASS — FOR ONE YEAR. 

AUGUSTUS SCHELL, ERASTUS C. BENEDICT. 

BENJAMIN W. BONNEY. 

SECOND CLASS — FOR TWO YEARS. 

SAMUEL OSGOOD, WILLIAM CHAUNCEY, 

CHARLES P. KIRKLAND. 

THIRD CLASS — FOR THREE YEARS. 

GEORGE FOLSOM, WILLIAM T. BLODGETT, 

JOHN ADRIANCE. 

AUGUSTUS SCHELL, Chairman. 
GEORGE MOORE, Secretary. 

[The officers of the Society are members, ex officio., of the Executive 
Committee.] 

COMMITTEE ON THE FINE ARTS. 



ABRAHAM M. COZZENS. WILLIAM J. HOPPIN, 

JONATHAN STURGES, THOMAS J. BRYAN, 

ANDREW WARNER, EDWARD SATTERLEE. 

ABRAHAM M. COZZENS, Chairman. 
ANDREW WARNER, Secretary. 

[The President, Librarian, and Chairman of the Executive Com- 
mittee are members, ex officio, of the Committee on the Fine Arts.] 



DISCOURSE. 

Mr. President and Brethren of the Historical 
Society, and Ladies and Gentlemen, our hon- 
ored GUESTS TO-NIGHT I 

In accepting the honor of your invitation to 
speak at this Anniversary, I find myself at once re- 
lieved and oppressed by the subject that forces itself 
upon me — relieved from all trouble in its choice, and 
oppressed by the utter impossibility of its adequate 
treatment. What topic can compare in importance 
and interest to this great city — our native or adopted 
home ; and who shall presume to treat it adequately 
in all its vastness, variety, and constant evolution ? 
As we gaze, the wonder grows ! and not even our 
daily familiarity with its streets and manners and 
business and people can hide from us the truth that 
it is one of the striking facts of the nineteenth cen- 
tury — one of the marvels of the age, if not one of the 
wonders of the world. 

The whole subject, of course, cannot be treated 
with any justness or fidelity in a single discourse ; 
and to attempt to do it would be like trying to empty 
our great harbor with a single pump, or to condense 
a cyclopedia into an hour's reading. It will not be 
a presuming or thankless task to try to lay before 
you some thoughts and studies upon "New York 



6 ]SrEW YOEK 

in the Nineteenth Century," if only as the unambi- 
tious outline of a chapter of Universal History. I 
must be content with two points of view : the first, 
from the beginning of the century ; the second, now. 

Not a little motive for the effort is given, let 
me say, by the strange and broad gulf between our 
present population and the old New Yorkers, and 
the almost entire absence of historical landmarks 
from our city, now under the sweeping tide of busi- 
ness and enterprise. Only a few of the ancient 
buildings remain, and almost all that we see before 
us is new. This imperial city, with its palaces and 
churches, rises before most of its people like Mel- 
chisedec, king of Salem, without father, without 
mother ; and they must confess his magnificence, who 
cannot tell his pedigree. 

The nineteenth century may be defined as the age 
of liberty organizing itselfj or as the period whose 
distinctive problem it is to construct or reconstruct 
society on the basis of freedom. The previous cen- 
turies have been the providential preparation for this 
task. It is probably safe to say, that the modern 
time, as a whole, since the invention of printing, 
the discovery of America, the inductive study of 
Nature, and the Protestant Reformation, has been 
most marked by the spirit of liberty ; and its history 
is the record of the e\'olution of freedom, as the 
thousand years before, since Constantine gave the 
Cross the support of his sceptre, and made Chris- 
tianity the law of the empire, was the age of au- 
thority, and its history is the record of obedience. 
Perhaps the four modern centuries may be desig- 



IN THE JSTlSrETEENTH CENTUET. 7 

nated thus, according to their part in the history 
of liberty : The sixteenth century was marked by 
the rise of religious liberty in protest against the 
Roman hierarchy, in connection with the revival of 
letters, and the awakening of industrial and com- 
mercial enterprise. The seventeenth century gene- 
rally breathed a calmer spirit, and strove to settle 
the Protestant Church and State u23on the new basis 
of Biblical doctrine or Reformed discipline. The 
eighteenth century, in great part, bolted from all 
Biblical doctrine and church discipline, and pro- 
claimed radical or social and philosophical liberty 
in the face of priest and king, and was the jubilee 
of social and philosophical illuminism. The nine- 
teenth century, the favored, and yet perplexed heir 
of such ancestors, has been trying to settle its 
great estate, and construct society and government 
upon the basis of the new liberty gained, and with 
all the lights of knowledge, experience, and faith. It 
has fallen to the lot of this city to have a conspicu- 
ous part m this great work of reconstruction, and 
the end is not yet. She has had the burden of the 
age upon her shoulders, and also her full share of 
the lessons and examples of the previous modern 
centuries to help her out. New York, in the begin- 
ning, was richly endowed in being the daughter and 
heir of one of the noblest nations of Europe; and 
when Henry Hudson first parted the waters of our 
noble bay and river, his signal, the Crescent or Half 
Moon, well and justly symbolized the predestined 
civilization of this New World. He opened here the 
pages of that history of liberty, that is not yet finished ; 



8 NEW YOEK 

and under tliat star of empire that shone above his 
ship, it did not need any marvellous divination to 
see the forms of the ruling spirits of the modern 
ages in his company. There were Columbus and 
Gutenberg and Luther and Bacon, with the com- 
pass and printing-press and open Bible and new 
organon of science signalling to him the new country 
and the new age coming, and his name marks still 
the river whose beauty and wealth and promise ask 
no borrowed honors from the fame of the Rhine 
or Danube, the Tiber or the Thames. 

The Dutch who founded New Amsterdam on 
this island of Manhattan, not only brought their 
own individual characters and personal property 
hither, but also their national life with its historical 
traditions, institutions, and powers. They brought 
with them much of the old feudal age in their muni- 
cipal laws and social traditions, that were in many 
respects so conservative, and all the fire of the New 
Keform in their thorough-going Calvinism, with its 
doctrines of justification by faith and direct election 
from God in the face of what they regarded as 
the Komish doctrine of salvation by merit and sub- 
jection to priests. Having passed through the ter- 
rible war for national life, they felt, at the time of 
the colonizing of New Amsterdam, the desire for 
stability so characteristic of the stormy century after 
the Reformation, the 17th, and they had all the 
conservatism of the old Catholicism on the new 
base of their reformed creed and discipline. They 
came here, indeed, for trade, yet their religion was 
none the less marked, because it did not send them 



IlSr THE NINETEEISTTH CENTURY. 9 

"hitlier, but simply came witli them because tLey 
came, and lived with them as part of themselves. 
They were hospitable and tolerant ; yet they never 
set forth any ideal standard of toleration, such as 
is the distinctive trait of Rhode Island. They did 
not affirm intellectual tolerance or intolerance here ; 
but like practical merchants and kindly neighbors, 
they were disposed to welcome all settlers who 
would not interfere with their business, without 
troubling themselves much with their opinions. 
Their faith had nothing of the subjective turn of the 
New England Puritans, who were always looking 
into their own minds, and willing to do the same 
thing for their neighbors. The Dutch were not an 
introversial, but an objective, practical people, never 
or rarely moved to intolerance unless pushed by the 
fear of having their liberties or institutions inter- 
fered with ; and it was probably from apprehended 
danger to the national life, rather than for mere 
opinion's sake, that the great acts of intolerance were 
perpetrated in Holland, such as the execution of 
Barneveldt and the exile of Grotius, and the perse- 
cution of the Baptists. The Dutch of New Amster- 
dam, though not wholly free from the charge of intol- 
erance, were in advance of their mother country in 
charity, and in advance of their Puritan neighbors; 
and their temper and legislation here gave their 
colony a good place in the record of American 
liberty. 

Their conservative temper had something in com- 
mon with the spirit which the English rule brought 
with it in 1664 ; for then England, after Cromwell 



10 ISTEW YORK 

and the commonwealtli, souglit S23iritual peace under 
the restored Stuarts, and afterwards, in 1688, she 
souglit not to destroy, but to deepen tliat peace 
under the tolerant sceptre of William of Orange, 
who tried to brino; Puritans as well as churchmen to 
truce, and who carried with him much of the mod- 
erate yet determined Dutch temper to the throne. 
The city, of course, w^as to be largely shaped by the 
English power ; for in 1664 its future was not 
wholly with the existing population of fifteen hun- 
dred souls. 

How far New York shared in the storm of radi- 
cal opinion and passion that marked the eighteenth 
century, it is not easy to say. Theologically there 
was little latitudinarianism in the churches here, 
although there is ample proof that alike, among lead- 
ing men and the restless populace, there was a great 
deal of acquaintance and sym23athy with the illu- 
minism of France and Germany, though far more 
acceptance of its free spirit than of its destructive 
notions. Zenger, forty years before the Declaration 
of Independence, led on the Sons of Liberty in 
much of the temper of the destroyers of the Bastile, 
and Freneau had much of the French revolutionist 
in his pen, whilst such stormy radicals as Paine, 
Elihu Palmer, and JoJm Foster, denounced the Bible 
and the Church in the spirit of Helvetius, Volney, 
Voltaire, and D'Holbach. Of these latter agitators, 
Paine and Palmer, and I think Foster also, were not 
natives, nor in any historical sense representatives 
of the old New York mind. The Pe volution itself 
is proof of the power of radical, political ideas of 



IlSr THE ISriNETEElSTTH CENTURY. 11 

the better class, and the very slowness of the leaders 
to join in the Declaration of Independence shows 
that the English Toryism that held the high places 
here during the British rule, was more than matched 
by the liberalism of the people and their favorite 
champions. The delay in adopting the federal Con- 
stitution — a delay that prevented New York fi^om 
casting her first electoral vote for Washington, and 
from being represented in the first American Senate — 
was not from Tory leanings towards the old colonial 
times, but from jealousy of centralized power, and 
it called for all the sagacity and eloquence and per- 
sonal influence of Hamilton, Jay, Madison, and the 
great Federalist leaders, to overcome the strong State 
feeling, and bring New York into that constitutional 
Union which she has never ceased to defend. It 
is interesting to read the names of the delegates 
from this city to the convention at Poughkeepsie in 
1788, that met to act upon the National Constitu- 
tion. New York, West Chester, Kings and Rich- 
mond Counties, chose federalists ; the Counties of 
Albany, Montgomery, Washington, Columbia, Dutch 
ess, Ulster, and Orange, chose anti-federalists, whilst 
the delegates from Suffolk and Queens Counties 
were divided. The New York delegates were John 
Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Chancellor Livingston, 
Richard Morris, then Chief Justice, and James Duane, 
Mayor of the city. Surely, we have not greatly im- 
proved on the year 1788, in the delegations of this 
year 1866. That delegation gave this city a great 
name in the history of liberty ; for it undoubtedly 
overcame the majority of the delegates to the Con- 



12 NEW YORK 

vention wlio were opposed to tlie Constitution, and 
it brought New York into the Constitutional Union. 
But we must not linger longer upon this prelimi- 
nary view of the relation of this city to the three 
previous modern centuries. We take our stand now 
at the opening of the nineteenth century, the year 
1801 — a most memorable year alike in Europe and 
America, and memorable too in its bearing on the 
organization of liberty. In France, liberty, after hav- 
ing battled down the Bastile and Throne and nobles, 
had turned organizer, and taught conservatism in 
the person of the First Consul, who was now proud 
to join the name of pacificator to that of conqueror, 
and boasted of bringing tranquillity to Europe by 
the peace of Luneville in 1801. Here in America, 
Democracy, or, as it was then called, Republicanism, 
took something of the same position, and, after over- 
throwing Federalism, it lifted its idol, Thomas Jeffer- 
son, to the pedestal of national union under the Con- 
stitution which it had so vehemently assailed. Be- 
fore, New York had been generally a federalist city, 
although all the power and influence of its great 
men were needed to keep it so. But in April, 1800, 
Aaron Burr and his republican allies put forth all 
their adroitness to carry the city for the democratic 
party, and nominated a ticket of memorable compass 
and attraction. Governor George Clinton, the most 
popular New Yorker of the day, the great States 
Rio-hts man of that time, and the idol of the demo- 
crats, headed the ticket, and held out the banner 
of his party. Brockholst Livingston represented the 
wealth of his powerful family, and gave it the force 



EST THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 13 

of Ms personal talent. General Horatio Gates gave 
Ms name to kindle anew tlie old revolutionary pas- 
sion. Samuel Osgood, a good type of a transplanted 
Massacliusetts man, stood for the Cabinet of Wash- 
ington, whose honored associate he had been, and 
was rewarded by being chosen Speaker of the Legis- 
lature, which, in November, 1800, virtually gave the 
electoral vote to Thomas Jefferson. So Federalism 
was defeated, yet not destroyed. Its characteristic 
idea lived and was vindicated by its nominal foes. 
Probably no men in America have done so much to 
carry out the cardinal principle of the American 
Union in the face of pressing dangers as the great 
democratic leaders, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew 
Jackson. Whatever they have meant to do, is less 
obvious than what God meant to do by them — the 
God of our liberty and our Union, who has deter- 
mined that the wi*ath of man should praise Him, 
and that the popular passion for freedom shall 
secure the life and law of the nation. The old 
Federalists deserved honor, for they spoke out the 
calm wisdom of time, and were the historical states- 
men of their day. So too they deserved rebuke, 
for they did not see, nor fully appreciate, the mind 
of the new age, and their distrust of the people with 
their own personal feuds had much to do with 
their downfall. We in our day have built their 
grandest monument in cementing their Union ; yet 
we have a more cheerful philosophy than theirs, 
and see more of God in the people, " the plain peo- 
ple," than they saw. We can join the names of the 
old Democrats, Chancellor Livingston and George 



14 NEW YOEK 

Clinton, to those of their great federal antagonists, 
Hamilton and Jay, in our record of the architects 
of liberty in New York city. 

It is amusing to look over the newspapers at 
the opening of the century, observe the items of 
news, and note the doleful tone of the leading con- 
servatives as to the dark prospects of the age. The 
Commercial Advertiser^ one of the seven daily papers 
issued here in 1801, and the only one, with the 
exception of the Evening Post, that has survived, 
begins the new year with the first of a series of 
articles by that noted and excellent man, Lindley 
Murray, on the nineteenth century, which are writ- 
ten in a spirit of croaking run mad, in a panic at 
the veiy name of liberty, especially the liberty of 
the press, and far more in the temper of the Pope's 
Encyclical Letter than of our modern thought ; in 
fact, so gloomy and reactionary, that they would 
be laughed at now by moderate conservatives, in 
the old world and the new. There had been a green 
Christmas, and it was then a mild Winter ; but to 
many like Murray, the political sky was dark and 
cold. 

The leading editorial in the Commercial Adver- 
tiser of New Year's Day, 1801, begins thus : 

At the close of tlie eigliteentli century, and near the close of the 
third Presidency in the American Administration, events have taken 
place that have excited no small surprise among men who are consid- 
ered as possessing great political discernment. Men wonder and 
speculate ! They are surprised at the issue of the elections, and look 
about them for the causes that have defeated their calculations. 



TN THE lONETEENTH CENTUEY. 15 

The article tlius continues towards the close : 

We have no grounds to felicitate ourselves on advancing a single 
step in tlie tlieory or practice of government witMn two thousand 
years. The opinion that we have advanced^ is derived from our pride, 
founded on our ignorance — an opinion that is a burlesk on our educa- 
tion, our pretended science, and our vanity. 

In the Commercial Advertiser of January 18, 
1801, we have this notice from President Adams, 
which is proof that he did not mean to see Thomas 
Jefferson inaugurated, and that our Presidents have 
mended the manners, if they have not outgrown the 
irritability, of the old times : 

The President of the United States requests the several printers 
who have sent him their newspapers, to send in their accounts and 
receive their payments. He also requests that they would send him 
no more after the 3d of March next. 

"Washington, January 13, 1801. 

A newspaper brings the past very near to us, and 
as we handle this old copy of the Advertiser^ it re- 
calls sixty-six years ago, and the New Year's Day 
when it was issued, and the New York of that day. It 
was then, as Irving said, a " handy city," where every- 
body knew everybody, and good neighborhood had 
not become a mere tradition. The city had about 
60,000 inhabitants, 10;000 less than Philadel^^hia 
had, and was a little larger than the city of Provi- 
dence now is, and considerably smaller than Newark 
is. Population had pushed up as far as Anthony 
Street, now "Worth Street, a little above the present 
City Hospital, and a line of farm-houses seemed on 
their way to Stuyvesant's Bowery, our present place 



16 NEW YOEK 

of meeting, and that St. Mark's Churcli, our near 
neighbor now, wliicli had been lately erected with- 
out its present steeple. There was, of course, no gas- 
light, and but little coal, and not any of our Croton 
water. Great was the fame of the Tea Water Pump 
in Chatham Street, and bad was the name of the 
new reservoir on the east side of Broadway, between 
Pearl and White Streets, on the two-acre lot bought 
of the Van Cortlandts for 1,200 pounds; and great 
was the hope of the New Manhattan Water Works 
in Chambers Street near Centre — a hope quite vain. 
The city was healthy, as it always is to all who 
take care of themselves, and its death-rate was 
about half that of last year, which was thirty-five 
in one thousand. 

Taxes were light, about one half of one per cent., 
and in 1796 the whole tax raised was 7,968 pounds, 
and the whole valuation of property was 1,261,585 
pounds — estimates that were probably about half 
the real value, so that the tax was only about one 
fourth of one per cent. A man worth $50,000 was 
thought rich, and some fortunes reached $250,000. 
Mechanics had a dollar a day for wages, and a gen- 
teel house rented for $350 a year, and $750 addi- 
tional would meet the ordinary expenses of living 
for a genteel family — such as now spends from $6,000 
to $10,000, we have good reason to believe, fr^om 
such authority as Mr. D. T. Valentine, Clerk of the 
Common Council. A good house could be bought 
for $3,000 or $4,000, and flour was four and five 
dollars a barrel, and beef ten cents a pound. 

There were great entertainments, and men ate 



EST THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 17 

and drank freely — more freely, apparently, tlian now 
— but nothing of present luxury prevailed in the high 
classes ; and how rare the indulgence was, is proved 
by the common saying, " that the Livingstons give 
champagne," which marked their case as exceptional. 
Now, surely, a great many families in New York 
besides the Livingstons give champagne, and not 
always wisely for their own economy or their guests' 
sobriety. 

These homely items give a familiar idea of old 
New York in 1801. We must remember that it 
was then a provincial city, and had nothing of its 
present back-country connection with the West, 
being the virtual capital of the Hudson Eiver Val- 
ley rather than of the great Empire State. Buffalo, 
Syracuse, Utica, and the noted cities of Western 
New York, were but names then, and Albany was 
of so little business note, that the main communica- 
tion with it was by dilatory sloops, such as Irving 
describes after his slow voyage in the craft that he 
long waited for, and which gave him ample time to 
study the picturesque on the Hudson, with such 
food for his humor as the Captain's talk in Dutch 
to his crew of negro slaves. What a contrast with 
a trip now in the St. John or the Dean Richmond — 
marine palaces that float you as in a dream by 
night through the charmed passes of the Hudson, to 
Albany ! Irving's name does much to bring before 
us the living picture of New York in 1801, and we 
can fancy somewhat what the city then was, by look- 
ing in upon him — then a youth of seventeen, at 128 
William Street — and going the rounds of society and 

2 



18 NEW YOKK 

sight-seeing on tliat New Year's Day. A few hours 
with him in his love of fun, and a few more with 
young Gulian C. Verplanck — who was then in the 
senior class at Columbia College and a little wild, 
according to the squibs of some of his political ene- 
mies, and whose social tastes were, of course, more 
mature, and in the line of all charming company — 
would tell more of those scenes and times than vol- 
umes of antiquarian research. We cannot paint the 
picture, nor try to describe the large diversity of 
nationalities, tastes, and characters, that even then 
made this city so universal in its affinities, and gave 
promise of its future comprehensiveness. Our task 
is rather in the sphere of general history, than of 
local and personal narrative; and perhaps enough 
has been said by Dr. Francis of the special features 
of old New York. Kindly thought of him here to- 
night ; for, surely, if spirits ever walk the earth, the 
stout old Doctor's ghost is with us now, in this his 
loved and familiar haunt. 

The historian seeks for universal laws, and is 
bound to search out the ideas and characteristics 
that connect a community with the nation and 
the race. It is not easy to say exactly wherein old 
New York represented the spirit of the nineteenth 
century. In some respects it seemed to ignore the 
nineteenth century, and surely, it was not conspicu- 
ous for science, art, philosophy, or poetry. Philadel- 
phia and Boston, probably even Charleston, S. C, 
were in advance of it in literary spirit ; and when 
Dr. Samuel Miller gave, on New Year's Day, 1801, 
in his Wall Street pulpit, his memorable retrospect 



IN THE NHSTETEEISTTH CEFTUEY. 19 

of the eighteen til century — which he afterwards ex- 
panded into two volumes, published in 1803 — he 
was far more complimentary to his remote than to 
his near neighbors in his portraiture of American 
science and literature. The title-page that styles 
him corresponding member of the Historical Society 
of Massachusetts, proves what he regarded as the 
representative of American history then, and is a 
sign that this Society of ours was needed and was 
to come the year after. His account of New York, 
in his chapter on " Nations Lately Become Literary,'' 
is very brief, and deals mainly with the founding 
of Columbia College, the Society Library, and the 
Medical School ; and he has no higher name to 
record in science than that of Dr. Mitchill among 
the New Yorkers, who could claim such peerless 
statesmen and political writers. Dr. Miller, in speak- 
ing of the want of literary culture in America, men- 
tions the causes, and naming among them defective 
collegiate instruction, want of books, want of leisure, 
and want of encouragement to learning, he per- 
haps tells the main reason when he says, " Besides, 
the spirit of our people is commercial. It has been 
said, and perhaps with some justice, that the love 
of gain peculiarly characterizes the inhabitants of 
the United States." This remark applied peculiarly 
to New York, which had been, from the first, espe- 
cially a business city, and it has always been so. It 
is precisely in this direction that we are to look for 
its higher developments, and its rightful place in 
universal history, rather than to pure science or ideal 
philosophy or letters. It is business that has given 



20 NEW YOEK 

this city its empii'e, and brouglit the imperial arts 
and sciences in its train. 

There is reason to believe that soon after the 
Revolution, men of thought in New York saw the 
rising destiny of their City and State, and one reason 
of their reluctance to come into the constitutional 
union, was the fear of making over too much of 
their local power to the central Government ; espe- 
cially their great share of revenue from imports, and 
their commanding position between New England 
and the South and West. Very early the interest 
of the Colonies seemed to centralize here, and the 
Colonial Congress of 1765, and the Provincial Con- 
gress of 1776, and the inauguration of Washington in 
1789, w^ere all hints of the empire that was to be. 

A gentleman who was here in 1787, when the 
whole State had a smaller population than North 
Carolina, wrote to his friends that the city was 
ruined by the war ; but its future greatness was 
unquestionable. Truth must be told, even if it 
mortifies our ambition ; and the development of the 
power of the State and City was not to be under 
the leadership of the great masters of its legislation. 
Hamilton fell sadly by an impious hand, and Jay 
retired from public life, and Gouverneur 'Morris too 
soon followed him. The masters of the future were 
men of business, and probably to Robert Fulton and 
De Witt Clinton, with their industrial friends and 
helpers, New York owes her imperial position in the 
nation and the world, more than to men of science 
or letters, scholars or statesmen. Even her great 
statesmen had much of business point and sagacity 



rCT THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 21 

in tlieir composition ; and, surely, Hamilton was as 
much, of a financier and soldier as a jurist, and per- 
haps was compelled to yield to the Virginia plan 
of the Constitution, because it came from Madison's 
more American mind, and embodied more of the 
instincts and traditions of the nation, than his more 
military and perhaps more European scheme of con- 
solidation. Chancellor Livingston claims as much 
honor by his encouragement to Fulton as by his 
law and statesmanship, and deserves with him a 
high name among the organizers of liberty. Who 
shall say what steam navigation has done to eman- 
cipate mankind from drudgery, and construct society 
upon the basis of liberty ? It is science turned liber- 
ator ; and the saucy philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
tury became the mighty and merciful helper of the 
nineteenth century. To us, individually and gener- 
ally, how marvellous has been the gift ! Wherever 
that piston-rod rises and falls, and those paddles 
turn, man has a giant for his porter and defender, 
and the liberty of the nation has been organized 
under its protection; and the great States of the 
Mississippi valley and the Pacific coast are brought 
within one loyal afiinity, and build their new liber- 
ties upon the good old pattern of our fathers. Clinton 
and Fulton, the one identified with the rise of steam 
navigation, the other with the Erie Canal, are names 
that belong to universal history, as having given 
America its business unity, and brought its united 
wealth to bear upon the industry and commerce of 
the world. 

We are somewhat surprised, in studpng the old 



22 NEW YORK 

New York mind, at seeing so little trace of specula- 
tive thinking, and it is not easy to say to wliat 
scliool of philosoj^liy its intellectual leaders belonged. 
Here we must make an important distinction, and 
see the cause of the absence of the speculative, sub- 
jective habit of mind so common in New England. 
New York was more dynamic than ideal, or more 
busy with active forces than theoretic principles. 
New York itself was a historic force, and not a theo- 
logical or philosophical school. It was a community 
that kept most of its historical continuity through 
three revolutions, and had no decided break in its 
evolution. Its 23eople were never come-outers or 
radicals of the extreme type ; but carried the old 
national life forward with them into new conditions. 
The Dutch colonists were Dutchmen still, and in the 
old church and nation ; the English were English 
still, with all the old loyalty to church and state ; 
and when the Dutch-English community crowned 
the old protest against Rome by the new protest 
against British despotism, they carried with them 
much of their old institutional habit. They did not 
go out and build anew under the open heavens from 
radical ideas ; but kept as far as they could within 
the old walls. Their spirit was fi'ee, but their 
method was cautious and conservative, and they 
leaned much upon the leaders who walked in the 
old historical paths. Thus the Constitution of 1777 
is a marvel of conservative caution, and shows the 
power of Jay and his associates over the mass, who 
were far more radical than he, and who consented 
to restricted suffrage and the aristocratic Councils of 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 23 

Appointment and Revision as keeping tliem within 
the safe old paths, whilst they rejoiced in the un- 
trammeled religious liberty given. Quite remarka- 
ble it is that the Convention of 1801 did little more 
than decide that the four Senators on the Council 
of Appointment should have concurrent voices with 
the Governor in making appointments to office. The 
people seemed to feel that they were a civic fact, a 
historic force, an actual institution, and it was a 
great thing to keep the life that came to them from 
their fathers. 

In their own way, their historical life expanded 
into new enterprises and institutions, and the year 
1804, that saw our Historical Society founded, the 
City Hall rising from its foundation, and the Public 
School Society virtually resolved upon, was a mem- 
orable date in the annals of the city. It was marked 
also by dark signs ; for it brought the terrible fire of 
December, with its loss of $2,000,000 and forty stores 
and dwellings, and the death of Hamilton , and the 
loss of his brilliant gifts and guiding intellect. 

In religion and theology there was much of the 
same spirit. The New York Churches were strong ; 
but the clergy were little given to speculative think- 
ing, and no commanding thinker appeared among 
them, such as abounded in New England. They 
kept the old creeds and usages with a strength that 
awed down dissent, and with a benign temper that 
conciliated favor. Latitudinarian tendencies were 
either suppressed, or driven into open hostility with 
the poj)ular creeds under deistical or atheistical 
teachers. In all, the congregations numbered 30, and 



24 NEW YORK 

the Jews had one synagogue. Even tlie most radical 
congregation in tlie city, the Universalist, held main- 
ly the old theological views, and had only one point 
of peculiar doctrine, and even with this single excep- 
tion, and with all the orthodox habits, they had only 
a lay organization in 1801, and were without a regu- 
lar minister till 1803. 

The Dutch Reformed, Episcopalians, Presbyte- 
rians, and Methodists, numbered each five congre- 
gations ; the Baptists three ; the Friends two ; the 
Lutherans two ; the Roman Catholics, Huguenots, 
Moravians, and Universalists, one each. Some writers 
en'oneously assign seven churches, instead of five, 
to the Episcopalians in 1801 ; by claiming for them 
the Huguenot Church Du Saint Esprit, which was 
established in 1704, and acceded to the Episcopal 
Church in 1804, and Zion Church, which was estab- 
lished by Lutherans in 1801, and joined the Epis- 
copal communion in 1810. 

As far as we can judge, the Presbyterian clergy 
had most of the new American culture of the severer 
kind, and Drs. Samuel Miller and John M. Mason 
were the intellectual leaders of the New York pulpit. 
The only man to be named with them in j^opular 
influence was John Henry Hobart, who was or- 
dained in 1801, consecrated bishop in 1811, and 
who, in spite of his extreme views of Episcopal pre- 
rogative, is to be named among the fathers of the 
American Church, and a good specimen of what old 
Trinity Churcli has done to unite patriotism with 
relio;ion. 

The Episcopal Church had much accomplishment 



IE" THE ISTIKETEENTH CENTURY. 25 

in its clergy, and Bisliop Prevoost, wlio received 
ordination in England, was a man of extensive 
knowledge, and Dr. Livingston of the Dutcli Church 
was a good match for him in learning and dignity. 
It is said that when these clerical mao-nates met on 
Sundays and exchanged salutations, they took up 
the entire street, and reminded beholders of two 
frigates under full sail, exchanging salutes with each 
other. 

Yet none of the New York clergy were patterns 
of the peculiar thinking of the nineteenth century, 
and the leaders steered clear of all traces of the 
rising rationalism. Dr. Miller touches upon the 
philosophy of the eighteenth century in his retro- 
spect, and promises to deal with theology in a 
separate work, but did not fulfil the promise ; and 
only indicates his own leanings and limited cul- 
ture by praising Locke and Reid in the same chap- 
ter, and, in almost the same breath, accepting Jona- 
than Edwards and ridiculing Emanuel Kant. Very 
clearly New York religion was not speculative or 
philosophical, yet it was none the less a positive 
institution, a living force, and it made up by its 
kindly spirit and its historical life for the absence 
of the critical knowledge that sometimes is found 
apart from piety and charity — the knowledge that 
puffeth up. We are to look for the connections of 
the old New York religion with the new age in 
its powerful organizing spirit ; and the great move- 
ments of piety and charity in America have come 
from the union of the institutional stability, order, 
and method of New York with the more subjective 



26 ]SrEW YORK 

tliouglit and culture of New England. Eeligious 
liberty has had its grandest organizations from this 
city, as a centre, and we have seen only the begin 
ning of its mighty and benign work. 

We may regard old New York as culminating 
in the year 1825, with the completion of the Erie 
Canal; and that great jubilee that married this city 
to the mighty west, began a new era of triumph and 
responsibility, that soon proved that the bride's festi- 
val is followed by the wife's cares and the mother's 
anxieties. New York had become the national city, 
and was so for a quarter of a century more, and 
then she became cosmopolitan, European as well 
as American, and obviously one of the few leading 
cities of the world — the third city of Christendom. 
We may fix this change upon the middle of the 
century as well as upon any date, and call the time 
from 1850 till now, her cosmopolitan era. The 
change, of course, was gradual, and the great increase 
of the city dates from the close of the Revolutionary 
war, and the evacuation of the city by the British 
troops. The population doubled nearly in the ten 
years after 1T90, and went from 33,000 to 60,000. 
In 1825 it reached 166,086, and in 1850 rose to 
515,515. All this increase could not but bring a 
new sense of power, and throughout all the bewilder- 
ing maze of the old New York politics we can see 
traces of the desire of the people and their leaders 
to dispute the palm of empire with Virginia and its 
old dominion. The efforts seemed vain that were 
made to put New Yorkers into the presidential 
chair. Before 1825, the State had tried three ^imes 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 2Y 

to elect a President, and three times had raised one 
of its sons to the Vice-Presidency. What could not 
be done directly, was done indirectly, and it seems 
to have been De Witt Clinton, before any leading 
Northern man, who led the way to the nomination 
of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency ; and before 
Van Buren had taken the same stand, he began the 
movement that ended in breaking the old Virginia 
line of power by reaching over into Tennessee and 
bringing a successful soldier into the field of politics. 
The line once broken, New York made way for its 
own ambition, and twice has had the Presidency in 
its hands ; and had more reasons than state ambi- 
tion for desiring to continue in power, when proba- 
,bly the ablest and purest of her new statesmen, Silas 
Wright, lost his political prospects because he would 
not strike hands with the propagandists of slavery; 
carried forward democracy in the spirit of its anti- 
slavery champion, Daniel D. Tompkins, who moved 
the Liberty Bill of 1817 ; and the new age began 
which has committed the Empire State to the do- 
minion of fi'eedom, and put her practically at the 
head of the movement which identifies the democratic 
idea in America with emancipation in the nineteenth 
century. 

The Constitutional Convention of 1821, with its 
moderate liberalism, and the amendment of 1826, re- 
moving restrictions on white suffrage, and the Con- 
stitution of 1846, with its extreme radicalism, con- 
nect this city with general history, especially by 
their bearing on universal suffrage, and the extension 
of the elective powers of the people, and the decen- 



28 NEW YORK 

tralizing of the State, to give more sway to local 
liberty, especially as to local magistrates and even 
judges. It is clear that the spirit of the nineteenth 
century was at work among the people ; and, in 
some respects, has gone so far as to raise the ques- 
tion, whether liberty has not been disorganized under 
the hands of its dissectors, who have taken the body 
politic to pieces, with the promise of putting it to- 
gether with complete equality among the members, 
without setting the intelligent voters, who should be 
the head, above the sots and dunces, who should be 
its foot ; and without denying suffrage to a drunken 
ignoramus on account of his color, yet refusing it to an 
intelligent and sober patriot for having another skin. 

It was in the period that we have called natioual, 
that the Constitutional Convention of 1846 was held, 
and entailed upon us, by its indiscriminate aboli- 
tion of the old central safeguards, some of the mis- 
chiefs that stand in such contrast with the majestic 
triumphs of the city in wealth and culture during 
that period, and which called for some remedy, and 
found it, in part, in the new plan of centralized 
power, which, since 1849, has given the State at 
large a hand in our home affairs. How grand in 
other respects was the development of the city in 
that twenty-five years, 1825 to 1850, and what a 
new and marvellous world of wealth and splendor 
rose before the eyes of our people ! 

In 1830 the State, which in 1800 threw the same 
number of electoral votes as North Carolina, had 
risen from 586,T56, to 1,918,608, and the city had 
gone from 60,489 to 202,589. 



nsr THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 29 

The introduction of gas and of tlie Croton water 
were grand illustrations of the power of organized in- 
dustry, and mighty aids in throwing light, health, and 
purity into the lives of the people ; and the rise of 
the great popular daily journals that almost created 
the national press of America, made an era in the 
free fellowship of public thought. The city pushed 
its triumphal march forward during that period, from 
Bleecker Street to Madison Square, and vainly tried 
to halt its forces at Washington and Union Squares, 
or to pause long anywhere on the way of empire. 
The whole period would make an important history 
of itself, and our task now is with the New York 
of to-day, as it has risen into cosmopelitan rank since 
1850 — the year which gave us a line of European 
steamers of our own, and opened the Golden Gate 
of California to our packets. 

Look at our city now in its extent, population, 
wealth, institutions, and connections, and consider 
how far it is doing its great work, under God's provi- 
dence, as the most conspicuous representative of the 
liberty of the nineteenth century in its hopes and 
fears. You are too familiar with the figures and 
facts that show the largeness of the city, to need 
any minute or extended summary or recapitulation. 
That we are not far from a million of people on this 
island, that began the century with 60,000 ; that the 
valuation of property, real and personal, has risen 
since 1805 from $25,000,000, to $736,988,058 ; that 
the real value of property here is about $1,00U,000,- 
000, or a thirtieth part of the entire property of 
Great Britain : that our taxes within that time have 



30 NEW YORK 

risen from |12T,000 to $1Q,950,167, over four and a 
half millions more than our whole national expendi- 
ture in 1801 ; that our banking capital is over $90,- 
000,000, and the transactions of our Clearing Houses, 
for the year ending October 1, 1866, were over $29,- 
000,000,000 ; that our Savings Banks have 300,000 
depositors, and $77,000,000 of deposits ; that our 
108 Fire Insurance Companies and 38 Fire Agencies 
have a capital of $47,560,000, and our 18 Life In- 
surance Companies a capital of $2,938,000, whose pre- 
miums last year were nearly $9,000,000 ; that, by the 
census of 1865, the number of dwellings was 49,844, 
and the value of them was $423,096,918 ; that this 
city, by the census of 1860, returned a larger manu- 
facturing product than any other city in the Union, 
and more than any State, except New York, Massa- 
chusetts, and Pennsylvania — the sum total of $159,- 
107,369,fromrawmaterial worth $96,177,038 in 4,375 
establishments, with 90,204 operatives, and $61,212,- 
757 capital, and manufactured nearly one-eleventh of 
the sum total of the United States * manufactures in 

* In justice to Philadelphia we quote the statistics of her manufactories 
from the census of 1860, which show a larger number of hands employed, and 
a larger capital invested, with less value, however, in raw material, and in the 
value of the product. Philadelphia had, in 1860, 6,298 manufacturing estab- 
lishments, with a capital invested of $73,318,885 ; with the cost of raw material, 
$69,562,206; with 98,988 operatives, and with an annual product of value 
$135,979,67'7. It must be remembered, however, that Philadelphia, since 1854, 
is made to include the whole county of one hundred and twenty square miles — 
nearly six times the area of New York city — which is very much like annexing 
Brooklyn and Jersey City and the whole neighborhood that really contains New 
York people, business, and capital to the city itself, and setting their financial 
returns down under one head. It is to be desired that New York would make 
as good provision for mechanics and persons of moderate means, as Philadelphia 
makes by her many snug and cheap houses, and her light expenses and simpler 
habits. 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 31 

1860, wliicli was $1,885,861,676; that in twenty 
years we exported, from September 1, 1846, to Sep- 
tember 1, 1866, to Europe, over 27,000,000 barrels 
of flour, over 164,000,000 bushels of wheat, 127,- 
000,000 bushels of corn, nearly 5,000,000 bushels of 
rye ; that the receipts for customs in this port for 
1865 were $101,772,905 ; that this city is the great 
gold market of the world, and in 1865 received 
$61,201,108, and exported over $30,000,000 abroad, 
and received in twelve years, 1854 to 1866, from San 
Francisco $375,558,659 in gold ; that our shipping, 
registered and enrolled in 1865, amounted in tonnage 
to 1,223,264 tons, and the number of arrivals of 
vessels in this port in 1865 was 12,634, of these 
2,078 being steamers ; that our exports for the year 
1865 were $208,630,282, and our imports were 
$224,742,419; that, on an average, 35 tons of mail- 
matter are received here for our citizens, and 55 tons 
are sent out daily ; that the average number of mail- 
bags received is 385, and the average number sent 
out is 713 ; that within three years and a half the 
mail correspondence of our citizens has doubled ; 
that the number of letters and newspapers collected 
by the carriers for the quarter ending December 31, 
1865, was over 3,000,000, and the number delivered 
by them was over 3,600,000, and the deliveries 
from Post-Office boxes for the same quarter were 
over 5,000,000 ; that the increase of letters is so 
marvellous that New York may soon rival London, 
which, in 1862, received by mail 151,619,000 letters; 
— these and the like plain statistics are sufficient to 
prove the imperial wealth and power of New York, 



32 NEW YOEK 

and to startle us with tlie problem of its prospective 
growth, when we remember that 4:-j\ per cent, in- 
crease, which has been generally the actual rate of 
increase, will give us a population of some 4,000,000 
at the close of the century. 

Now, what are we to say of the city in its 
higher, intellectual, and moral relations to our nation 
and age ? What features of cosmopolitan greatness 
is it manifesting ? It is surely no small thing, that 
so many people live here in tolerable peace and com- 
fort ; yet, of course, mere numbers do not constitute 
greatness, else Pekin would excel us two to one, 
and Yeddo might throw Paris and London into the 
shade. Greatness is in quality, not quantity, and a 
rational man of five feet eight inches is greater than 
a rude giant of eight feet, or a whale of ninety feet, 
or a comet with a tail fifteen millions of miles long. 
Take the test of quality, and New York need not 
hide her head among the great cities of the world, 
nor shrink from comparing her best citizens with the 
best citizens of any other city, nor from asking for 
her daily work an honorable position in the history 
of human capital, labor, and skill. Every day the 
nation and the world are richer for what is done on 
this island, and the great army of workers here with 
the hand or head, presents a marvellous spectacle to 
the mind capable of putting their various sections 
together, and seeing at one view our New York at 
its daily work. 

Let us pass in review the industrial army of the 
city, which General Barlow, Secretary of State, al- 
lows me to copy from the unpublished census of 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 33 

1865, and let us imagine it divided into regiments, 
thus, of about a thousand persons each : 

Blacksmiths, over two and one-half regiments or 2,621 

Bookbinders, over one " • • • • 1,134 

Boiler Makers, nearly one " •••• ^1*^ 

Boot and Shoe Makers, over six " 6,307 

Butchers, four " •••• 3,998 

Brokers, one and one-third " li348 

Barbers, one . - " 1,054 

Cabinet Makers and Dealers, two and one-half . " 2i,575 

Carpenters, over six " 6,352 

Cartmen and Draymen, four and one-half. .... " 4,675 

Clerks, seventeen and one-half " 17,620 

Clergy, nearly one-half " 429 

Confectioners, nearly one " ^^^ 

Cooks, one " •••• ^^^ 

Coopers, one and one-half " • • • • 1,401 

Dressmakers, etc., nine and one-half " 9,501 

Drivers, nearly two " • • • • 1,895 

Engineers, over one " •••• 1,196 

Grocers, one " 937 

Hat and Cap Makers, one and one-half " 1,438 

Jewelers, one " 925 

Laborers, twenty-one and one-quarter " 21,231 

Laundresses, three and one-half " 3,590 

Lawyers, one and one-fourth " 1,232 

Merchants, six " 5,978 

Machinists, three " 3,108 

Masons, three " .... 2,757 

Milliners, one and one-third " 1,334 

Musicians, nearly one *' • • • • 809 

Painters and Glaziers, four " .... 3,801 

Peddlers, two " .... 1,988 

Physicians, one and one-fourth " 1,269 

Piano Makers, nearly one " .... 855 

Plumbers, one..... " .... 1,108 

Police, one and one-half " .... 1,546 

Porters, nearly three " 2,729 

Printers, two " 2,186 

Saddlers and Harness Makers, one " .... 915 

Sailors and Marines, over three " .... 3,288 

3 



34 n:e,w yoek 

Servants, thirty-three regiments or 33,282 

School-Children, one hundred " 100,000 

Ship Carpenters, one " .... 1,156 

Stone Cutters, one and one-third " 1,342 

Tailors, ten " 9,734 

Teachers, over one and one-half " 1,608 

Tinsmiths, one " 931 

These occupations and others that I might pre- 
sent from the voluminous pages of the Census, reckon 
about 150,000 of the people, and with school-child- 
ren a quarter of a million. 

The measure of a man's dignity depends upon 
the degree in which he rises above his private wants 
and lives in universal principles, motives, and ob- 
jects. Now, how far is the work of our city made 
to bear upon the business and welfare of the nation 
and the world, and how does a cosmopolitan spirit 
mark the temper of our people ? Much, surely, and 
probably far more than we are apt to think. The 
truth is coming out, more and more, that we are 
working with the country and the race, and giving 
and receiving good of all kinds, by a perpetual and 
magnificent exchange of thought and incentive, as 
well as of merchandise. Our best merchants are 
obliged to hold the markets of the globe in their 
minds, and our commerce is the practical fellowship 
of the business of the world, and this city has much 
of the enterprise and wealth of the whole nation in 
its charge. I do not say that business is done 
wholly or mainly for disinterested aims, or that 
Wall Street and South Street are zealots for uni- 
versal philanthropy or missionary sacrifice ; but I do 
believe that they, in their best merchants, have a 



IlSr THE NmETEElSTTH CENTUEY. 35 

large sense of the grandeur of their work and a ris- 
ino; conviction of its relation to the nation and the 
world. Our best merchants and bankers do not neg- 
lect character as an essential attendant of capital, 
and commercial honor means as much here as any- 
where in America or Europe. The city that is next 
to London in financial importance, and lately saved 
the credit of the Bank of England by her gold, 
is not behind London in the worth of a true busi- 
ness man's word. Business here in its best form is 
done with careful method as well as large enterprise, 
and the leading firms assure me that one. per cent, 
in sales will cover the amount of their average losses 
in trade. Of course, wealth is no measure of great- 
ness, and we all know how utterly contemjotible a 
millionnaire may make himself by his utter treachery 
to the noblest principles ; but it is the man that is 
mean, not the spirit of business, nor the nature of 
capital. The money is often nobler than the man, 
and capital, under the influence of the immense en- 
terprise and world-wide relations of this city, has a 
certain grandeur in its tone, and cannot be sluggish, 
nor wholly mean, if it will follow bravely the lead 
of the age, and make its investments with the best 
promise of honest return. Surely, our New York 
capital is in marvellous relations with the industry 
of the nation and the globe, and the purse here is 
the sinew of peace, as it has been the sinew of war. 
Day by day it keeps its vast army and navy of 
industry on the land and sea, and no man can enter 
intelligently into the study of the relations of capital 
and labor here, without saying that the subject rises 



36 NEW YOKK 

into imperial dignity, and a true mercLant cannot 
be a cliurl or a dunce. Business itself here teaches 
large ideas, and breathes a brave spirit and a gener- 
ous fellowship. The trades catch something of the 
same temper, and the mechanics of this city, so emi- 
nent for skill and thrift, have much sense of their 
part in the work of their time, as well as their craft. 

The earnings of labor rise here into grandeur, 
and not only count up by millions in our Savings 
Banks, but defend the country and build up the 
city. New York was built up largely by money 
loaned to our merchants from our Savings Banks ; 
and, when the nation's life was threatened, these 
husbanded wages, as will be seen by Colonel War- 
ner's statement,* were transferred into loans to our 
Government, and thus our hard-handed industry 
sent its money as well as its men to the war ; and, 
therefore. New York labor is imperial in its work, 
and has done a noble part in giving our America 
her place among the nations. How mightily New 
York labor, capital, and skill, met together in our 
iron-clad fleet! When the brave little Monitor 
steamed into Chesapeake Bay and struck the rebel 
bully, the Merrimac, the deadly blow that stopped 
its piratical work, the mechanics and merchants 
of New York were there in their might, and Ful- 
ton and Ericsson led them to their triumph under 
the good old flag of the Union. Our business 
surely rises into imperial proportions, and is train- 
ing us to a certaih sense of our belonging to the 
great empire of industry that is so vitally con- 

* See Appendix. 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUET. 37 

nected with the republic of letters. It does some 
tilings that have a romantic grandeur, and read 
like chapters of a poem. What was it in the main 
but the business spirit, that carried through the 
last wonder of the world ? It was not abstract 
philanthi'opy, nor priestly ambition, nor missionary 
zeal, nor scientific pride, nor intellectual curiosity, but 
simple business enterprise, far-seeing and plucky, 
that laid the Atlantic Cable, and gave the two 
hemispheres of the globe one pulse and brain. In 
the Great Eastern, C}tus W. Field brought our Fulton 
and Morse to work together in a wonderful way, 
and Fulton's steam carried the cable, and Morse's 
lightning sent through the thought. So the spirit 
of business joined together the engine that carries 
l)ulk with the battery, that discharges brain ; and 
New York has had a mighty hand in that organism 
of liberty of the nineteenth century, that emanci- 
pates man from the weight of his burdens and the 
bonds of distance and of time. 

As to the bearing of New York upon govern- 
ment, which is part of the great work of life, there 
is much to say in various directions, lights, and 
shades. Yet this is surely true, that this city in 
its real historical life has been the guardian of 
liberty, order, and union, and the great scandals 
that have sometimes fallen upon its good name, 
have not been its own home production. The city 
has been wonderfully free from disorder, and when 
mobs have appeared, the fact that they have showed 
their heads reads less conspicuously in our history, 
than the fact that they were at once put down, 



38 NEW YOEK 

and the heads disappeared more quickly than they 
came. The hist of these mobs and the worst, be- 
cause against the few and unoffending negroes, was 
most effectually put down, and the city at large 
applauded the magistrate whose decision was most 
conspicuous in giving the rioters their due, and he 
is now our honored Mayor. The logic of our his- 
tory and conviction as to mobs, is simple and suf- 
ficient. It says to all assemblies that threaten per- 
son or property, " Disperse ! " and if they do not 
go, then it says, " Fire ! " In mercy, as well as in 
justice, that logic has worked well, and is not like- 
ly to die out. 

The marvellous growth of population, within 
twenty years, has added half a million to our num- 
bers, and called, of course, for new measures, and 
ouo;ht to be some excuse for some mistakes and 
disappointments. The charter bears the mark of 
many changes, and is destined to bear more. The 
original charter was given by James II. in 1686 ; 
was amended by Queen Anne in 1708 ; further 
enlarged by George II. in 1730, into what is now 
known as Montgomerie's Charter, and as such was 
confirmed by the General Assembly of the Province 
in 1732, and made New York essentially a free 
city. The Mayor was appointed by the Provincial 
Governor and Council, till the Revolution ; by the 
State Governor and four members of the Council 
of Appointment, till 1821 ; by the Common Council, 
until 1834, and aftel' wards by the people. In 1830, 
the people divided the Common Council into two 
boards, and, in 1849, the government was divided 



IK THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 39 

into seven departments, tlie heads of eacli being 
chosen by the people, and the Mayor's term of of- 
fice being extended to two years. In 1853, the 
Board of Assistant Aldermen was changed to a 
Board of sixty Councilmen, and the term of Alder- 
men extended to two years. In 1857, the number 
of Aldermen was reduced from twenty-two to seven- 
teen, and the sixty Councilmen to twenty-four; and 
the present complex system of government was es- 
tablished, with its many disconnected branches and 
equivocal division of power between the city, coun- 
ty, and state. Strangely is the Mayor shorn of 
power, and the office which De Witt Clinton pre- 
ferred to his place in the National Senate, is now 
little more than a name and j)(^sition. Still, the 
essence of Montgomerie's old charter remains, and 
the true spirit can redress the new corruptions. 

There are some ugly aspects of our city govern- 
ment that make it difficult to treat .the subject in 
the dignified light of history, and difficult to keep 
silent upon the manifest wickedness of some of our 
officials and their accomplices. It is not necessary 
to take partisan ground to rebuke the wrong; for 
no party has the monopoly of the offence. Fair 
men of both parties now say that our citizens are 
robbed and our city is disgraced. It is clear that 
whilst we have many honest and effective men in 
office, we have also a set of knaves in power, whose 
conduct violates every principle of justice and pa- 
triotism. May I not say, that whilst this city is 
intensely American in feeling, we are afflicted with 
one institution peculiarly foreign ? We have a royal 



40 ISTEW YOEK 

family, whose maintenance is very dear, and whose 
title to their state and income it is Lard to discover. 
They abound in brass and gold ; but whilst the 
brass on their faces is their own, the gold in their 
pockets is stolen from yours. They have the cost- 
liest signet 7'ing in Christendom, and it makes the 
dirtiest mark, and sullies the sacred motto of Lib- 
erty which it bears. It puts the stain of iniquity 
even upon the seat of judgment, and the millions 
($2,243,340 60) expended on the unfinished Court- 
House, prove that the work has been managed in 
part by thieves. What to do is the universal ques- 
tion, and we all ask it with per^^lexity. The prin- 
ciple is clear, and the method will ere long show 
itself. The principle of our redemption is to be 
found in the sacred idea of freedom. It is not in 
party spirit, nor aristocratic pride, noi* property j)re- 
rogative ; but in intelligent liberty and public spirit. 
We are oppressed, degraded, and robbed, 'and we 
ask to be liberated, and we shall be, if we trust 
more in the spirit of Zenger and his Liberty Bo^^s 
than that of Lord Howe with his dragoons. The 
city belongs to the State, nation, and world, and not 
to any clique or ring or party ; yet whatever is 
done, should aim to give our citizens self-respect, 
to train them as much as possible to manage their 
own affairs. Our people are intelligent, industrious, 
honest, and brave, and mean to have their rights, 
and shall. Careful legislation, with intelligent suf- 
frage and a city government more on the plan of 
the national, and taking from the Common Council 
its temptations to base jobs, will set us right, and 



EST THE NESnETEENTH CENTURY. 41 

free us from being subject to tlie dynasty of dirt 
and sovereignty of sots. Of parties merely, as such, 
little is to be hoped. Of the people of the city and 
the State, all may be expected that is right, when 
existing wrongs are clearly seen, and all honest men 
are banded against them by the true principle of 
impartial suffrage, and universal liberty and law. 
Then, as elsewhere in America, liberty becomes con- 
servative, and is settled into law, whilst law rises 
into liberty. Let all honest men take as much in- 
terest in our city aflPairs as thieves now take, and 
our city is saved. 

With all the drawback of defective municipal 
government, the city is a great power in the Union, 
and gave its wealth and men to the nation. Nay, 
its very passion has been national, and the mass 
who deplored the war never gave up the Union, 
and might, perhaps, have consented to compromise 
rather than to disunion, and have gone beyond any 
other city in clinging to the Union as such, whether 
right or vvrong. The thoughtful mind of the city 
saw the true issue, and, whilst little radical or doc- 
trinaire in its habit of thinking, and more inclined 
to trust to historical tendencies and institutional 
discij)line for the removal of wrong than to abstract 
ideas, it did not waver a moment after the die was 
cast, and the blow of rebellion and disunion was 
clear. The ruling business powers of the city gave 
money and men to the nation, when the Government 
was halting and almost paralyzed. The first loan 
was hazardous and the work of patriotism, and 
when our credit was once committed, the wealth of 



42 NEW YOEK 

tlie city was wholly at tlie service of the nation, 
and the ideas of New England, and the enthusiasm 
of the West, marched to victory with the mighty 
concurrence of the money and the men of the Em 
pire City and State. The State furnished 473,443 
men, or, when reduced to years of service, 1,148,604 
years' service ; equal to three years' service of 382,- 
868 three years' men ; and the city alone furnished 
116,382 men, equal to 267,551 years' service, at a 
net cost of $14,577,214 65. That our moneyed men 
meant devoted patriotism, it is not safe to say of 
them all. In some cases, their capital may have 
been wiser and truer than the capitalist, and fol- 
lowed the great current of national life. Capital, 
like water, whose currents it resembles, has its own 
laws, and he who owns it cannot change its nature, 
any more than he who owns a water-power can 
change the power of the water. The capital of this 
city is bound, under God, to the unity of the nation, 
and, therefore, has to do a mighty part in organ- 
izing the liberty of the nineteenth century. Led 
by the same large spirit, and true to the Union 
policy which has been the habit of the community 
from the old Dutch times, the dominant thought 
of our people will be sm-e to vindicate the favorite 
idea of States Rights in the Union against States 
Wrongs out of it ; and the seceded States will be 
restored as soon as they secm^e the States that have 
never seceded the just fruits of the war for the 
national life — and guarantee them against all repeti- 
tion of the treason. The end shall be liberty for 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 43 

all ; for the wMte man aud the black man, every- 
where ; for the South as well as the North. 

It mio^ht be shown that the business mind of 
our city has had great aptitude for the organization 
and government of institutions of charity and re- 
form, and that, with all their defects, these institu- 
tions are, in many respects, as remarkable for their 
efficiency as their extent. Here, moreover, where 
crime rises into gigantic proportions, our safeguards 
are by no means of pigmy shape, and our police 
system is justly a matter of pride with oui' good 
citizens, and makes their walks safe by day and 
their pillow tranquil at night. That 68,373 arrests 
were made for offences of all grades in the year 
1865, and, of these arrests, 53,911 were for offences 
of violence or other harm towards the person, proves 
the vigilance of our police ; and that so many who 
were arrested were discharged on insufficient grounds, 
has raised in some observers the suspicion that some 
of our judges are either not wise or not honest, and 
too near the interests of the culprits. Our police, 
although established by the State authority, repre- 
sents the historical, legitimate mind of the city in 
itself and its rural connections ; for the country and 
city are, in important resj^ects, one, and a large part 
of our true democracy who have genuine and just 
interest in the city, live in the country. Aristotle * 
was wise, and seems to have had a foresight of our 
day, when over two thousand years ago he wrote : 
" When a country happens to be so situated, that a 
great part of the land lies at a distance from the 

* Aristotle, Politics, B.ok vi., ch. iv. 



44 NEW YOEK 

city, there it is easy to establisli a good democracy or 
a free State ; for the people in general are obliged 
to form their settlements in the country." Our rural 
or territorial democracy may carry their jurisdiction 
too far ; but their leading acts have tended to or- 
ganize our liberty, not to bring us under the yoke 
of bondage. It is not the party, but the great heart 
of the peoj)le, that we must trust. Surely, viewing 
our city in all its j)ublic institutions, under the two- 
fold aspect of urban and rural control, they present 
a great monument of organizing sagacity and force ; 
and even the frauds that pervert their functions 
cannot blind us to the largeness of the organization 
and the frequent fidelity and effectiveness of the 
management. We must not exaggerate our miseries, 
nor allow a rino" of thieves to shut us out from the 
knowledge of our faithful servants. Remember that 
if New York has rogues in ofiice, other cities are 
not spotless, nor wholly frugal ; that London 
prints ponderous volumes on municipal frauds, and 
Paris * has a yearly Budget, that, of late, approaches 

* That Paris is like us in financial trouble, is evident from this passage from 
Kolb's admirable Handbook of Comparative Statistics, Leipsic, 1865. " The 
city of Paris alone has a Budget like an empire ; but like one that finds itself in 
financial decline. In 1847, its levy was limited to 46,000,000 frs. In 1853, 
the impost was raised to 55,000,000 at the highest ; but there was actually a 
demand, ordinary and extraordinary, for 90,000 000 ; on account of which a 
loan of 60,000,000 was negotiated. The Budget for 1859 closes with the 
figures '7*7,649,081 frs. The sum actually needed reached 97,720,545 frs. The 
Budget for 1864 is fixed at 81,586,376 frs. ordinary, and 52,714,936 extra- 
ordinary ; to which were added 15^ millions supplementary, and 1,337,630 
special appropriations; amounting in all to the sum of 151,408,942 frs. The 
actual account in 1862 reaches the enormous sum of 175,712,566 frs." Kolb, 
page 68. I have seen a statement that sets the Budget of 1863 at 193 million 
frs. Yet for all this, Paris taxes property less than New York, and so does not 
drive her residents away by over taxation. She puts most of the burdens on 



IlSr THE NESTETEElSrTH CENTTTEY. 45 

),000,000 in gold. Believe it, that we have the 
groundwork of a noble municipal order ; and the 
poorest service that the citizen can render, is to 
despair of the republic or its metropolis. Its insti- 
tutions of charity and reform have the outlines of 
imperial greatness, and need only to be filled up 
with an imperial mind and energy. Already muni- 
ficent, voluntary associations have done a great work 
and given nobler promise. Their history would fill 
volumes. 

Do not disdain to look upon our city upon 
another side, and consider how the great brain of 
business refreshes itself with what is generally called 
amusement. Rehearse all the records of excess and 
folly and utter wickedness that you can, and yet 
there is something else, and not by any means dis- 
heartening to say. Allow that in this city, in the 
yeai' ending October 31, 1865, over 16,000 persons 
were arrested for intoxication, and over 7,000 more 
for intoxication and disorderly conduct ; that there 
are some 10,000 places for intoxicating drinks, and 
dens of licentiousness in proportion. Let us not 
forget that there is something encouraging in the 
demand for the higher forms of recreation, the beau- 
tiful arts, sculpture, painting, music, the higher 
drama, and, above all, for that gift of God, fair and 
great Nature, as presented in our noble Park under 
the sagacious and powerful hand of art. We must 
rest our minds as well as our bodies, and beautiful 

imports and sales, and in 1864 the Octroi tax was estimated at 84,281,000. 
New York would be a cheaply governed city, if we had our whole revenue from 
customs, &c., to draw from. 



46 NEW YORK 

art gives the rest tLat soothes without stupefying, 
and cheers without maddening. God himself is 
opening a new world of loveliness. It is He that 
offers us the musical scale, after our brains are 
weary of the multiplication-table, and to man as 
to child he bids us to the drama that is called play, 
after we are worn down with the drama that is 
called work. Remarkable and interesting it is to 
see that beautiful tastes are rising with our utilita- 
rian pursuits, and music and its sister arts follow 
in the track of mathematics . and its severe paths. 
It is surely something to thank Heaven for, that we 
have so much beautiful art within our reach ; that 
gifted men and women bring hither their choice 
works of sculpture and painting, and that we have 
heard Jenny Lind and other spirits of song, and seen 
the Keans and Kembles, Rachel, Ristori, and their 
peers in the higher walks of the drama. There is a 
Providence in it, and our city, with all its vices and 
follies, sets an example to the nation of the higher 
pleasures that cheer labor with recreation, and throw 
over care the charm of poetry and art. Happy will 
be the day when society learns the true lesson, and 
abandons its semi-barbarous extravagance and dis- 
sipation, for true companionship and exalting graces. 
Society is not well with us now, and the tnie union 
of men and women, social and domestic, is broken 
by an alarming secession. The men have, in great 
numbers, seceded to the clubs, and the women, in 
alarming array, have abandoned themselves to dress 
and jewels, in a devotion which makes the clothes 
primary, and the woman secondary; in a fashion 



IN THE JSmSTETEEIfTH CENTURY. 47 

that renders most visiting intolerable to sensible 
men, and ranks the lady according to tlie wardrobe, 
and the sociality according to the cook and dancing- 
master. We wait for the heroine, the feminine Grant 
or Sherman, who shall reduce the seceders to sub- 
mission, plant the banner of Union on the Fort 
Sumters of their rebellion, and bring them to tenns 
by force of such combined loveliness and goodness, 
as to make their loyal yoke more charming than their 
boasted and disloyal liberty. Then, perhaps, mod- 
ern New York might recall, without blushing, what 
Mrs. Grant wrote long years ago of old New York : 
" These unembellished females had more comprehen- 
siveness of mind, more variety of ideas, more, in 
short, of what may be called original thinking, than 
could be easily imagined." 

And how shall we estimate the education of our 
people in its various forms ; by schools, colleges, 
newspapers, books, churches, and, not least, by this 
great university of human life which is always before 
our eyes ? Think of the 208,309 scholars reported in 
1865 in our public schools, and the average attend- 
ance of 86,6Y4 in those schools, and over 100,000 
scholars in regular attendance in all our schools, both 
public and private. Think of our galleries of art, 
private and public, and our great libraries and read- 
ing-rooms like the Astor, the Mercantile, the Society, 
and the Cooper Union. Consider the remarkable 
increase of private libraries, such as Dr. Wynne has 
but begun to describe in his magnificent volume. 
Think of our press, and its constant and enormous 
issues, especially of daily papers, which are the pecu- 



48 NEW YOEK 

liar literary institution of our time, and alike the 
common school and university of our people. Our 
350 churches and chapels, 258 of them being regular 
churches of all kinds, can accommodate about 300, 
000 hearers, and inadequate as in some respects they 
are as to location and convenience, they can hold as 
many of the people as wish to attend church, and far 
more than generally attend.* Besides our churches 
and chapels, we have powerful religious instrumen- 
talities in our religious press, and our city is the 
centre of publication of leading newspapers, maga- 
zines, and reviews, of the great denominations of the 
country. In these organs the best scholars and 
thinkers of the nation express their thought in a 
way wholly unknown at the beginning of the cen- 
tury, when the religious press of the country was 
not apparently dreamed of. The higher class of re- 
ligious and theological reviews that are published 
here, are, perhaps, the best specimens of the most 
enlarged scholarship and severe thinking of America, 
and are doing much to educate an enlightened and 



* The fullest statistics of New York religion that we can obtain, are given 
in the excellent Report of the City Mission for 1866, and give a list of 850 
churches, chapels, and synagogues; 171 of them being below Fourteenth 
Street, and 179 above Fourteenth Street. The list of clergy resident num- 
bers 537, and the number of pastors is 298 : being of Baptists 30, Congre- 
gationalists 5, Dutch Reformed 21, Lutheran 9, Methodists 41, Presbyte- 
rians 56, Episcopalians 79, Roman Catholic 36, Unitarian 3, Miscellaneous 
14. The number of Roman Catholic pastors is understated, by naming only 
one in connection with each church ; whereas there are often several. The 
State Census of 1865 returns 258 churches in the city, valued at $12,859,500 ; 
with other real estate, to t'le amount of $8,477,800 ; with capacity for seating 
266,980 persons, and with a usual attendance of 161,403. The salaries of the 
clergy, including use of real estate, are estimated at $504,400 — being an average 
of $1,965 each. 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 49 

truly catliolic spirit and fellowship. If the question 
is asked, in view of all these means of education, 
what kind of mind is trained up here, or what are 
the indications of our New York intelligence, it may 
not be so easy to say in full, as to throw out a hint 
or two by way of suggestion. There is, certainly, 
what may be called a New York mind and character, 
and there must be from the very nature of the case. 
Some characteristics must mark each community, as 
the results of birth and breeding ; and however great 
the variety of elements, some qualities must predomi- 
nate over others in the people, as in the climate and 
fruits of a country. Where two tendencies seem to 
balance each other for a time, one is sure, at last, to 
preponderate, and to gain value and power with time, 
and win new elements to itself It is not hard to 
indicate the essential New York character from the 
beginning. It is positive, institutional, large-hearted, 
genial, taking it for granted that all men are not of 
one pattern, and that we are to live by allowing 
others to have their liberty as we have ours. 

Perhaps we make the portrait more distinct by 
comparing New York with New England ; the Knick- 
erbocker with the Yankee. There is this great dif 
ference in their antecedents. The old New Yorker 
began with his European national and church life, 
and was Dutch or English in church and state, 
without any radical non-conformity. The New Eug- 
lander began with separation, and whilst bringing 
the noblest elements of European character, he started 
as a dissenter from church and state. Hence the 
obvious and remarkable difference. The New Yorker 

4 



50 NEW YOEK 

rested in the old institutions, and still rests in them, 
— in the Heidelberg Catechism and Dutch Church 
or in the Prayer Book and Anglican Church or 
Westminster Confession and Presbyterian Church ; 
and, moreover, in civil matters, he trusts more in 
ancient and fixed law, than in radical principles. 
The New Englander was busy with reconstructing 
society and religion, according to his own convic- 
tions, and so became subjective, introversial, and 
doctrinaire ; sometimes to such a degree as sadly to 
puzzle and annoy his old Dutch-English neighbors, 
and as still to draw from their representatives here 
the accusation of being over-subjective, opinionated, 
and dictatorial, if not over-fond of turning the world 
of institutions upside down, at the mercy of his 
remorseless ideas. One other difference marks the 
two in a way that is not often acknowledged, and 
may not be sufficiently appreciated. New England 
at first seceded not only from old England, but from 
old Europe, and undertook to give up the dominant 
Japhetic or Indo-European idea of God in history, 
and to return to 'Shem and the Law of Moses, with 
the idea of God over us rather than with us, and to 
reject or slight the European Christian year and 
round of worship that is based upon the Incarna- 
tion. The Puritan, of course, believed in the Gospel 
and its great truths of Incarnation and Atonement ; 
but he made the expiatory Atonement and its sub- 
jective work more conspicuous, and was suspicious 
of the old church habits that are built upon the 
objective Incarnation, and keep the Christmas jubi- 
lee and its sequel. He was distrustful of the method 



IN THE ISniSrETEElSrTH CENTUEY. 51 

of nurture, and trusted more to direct conversion. 
Tlie New Yorker, whether Dutch or English, brought 
over the old Christian year with its educational dis- 
cipline, and New York still keeps the habit, aad is 
decidedly a Churchman's, and not a Puritan, city. 
The Dutch retained the Christian ytar with its Pinx- 
ter and Paas festivals, and great was the wrath of 
many when Dr. Laidlie denounced their old church 
ways, and drove scores of old Dutch families into 
the Episcopal church by his Puritanic radicalism. 

The two churches are, indeed, wonderfully draw- 
ing near each other, the Puritan and the Churchman, 
as we shall see, and blending the calm method of 
church nurture with the Puritan method of indi- 
vidual conversion ; yet these distinctions are never- 
theless real, and are essential to a fiiir study of our 
subject. The Puritan has made up for the narrow- 
ness of his Semitic theism, by the new science and 
insight that discern God's immanence in nature and 
man ; and the Churchman has quickened his objec- 
tive conservatism by a large infusion of Puritan in- 
dependence, intuition, and fire. In this and in other 
respects the elements of civilization are combining 
in our city, and are giving us promise of the imperial 
city and the imperial mind that shall be. Our liter- 
ature shows the same process, and whilst all types 
of thought and styles of diction here centre, the 
most memorable combination is that of Puritan anal- 
ysis and intuition with catholic largeness and re- 
pose. Irving well represents the calm, cheerful, old 
conservatism from his Sunnyside on the Hudson ; 
and, perhaps, Hawthorne, at his old Puritan manse 



52 KEW TOEK 

on Concord River, is his contrast in introversial in- 
siglit and mystical fancy. How much tlieir works 
are read here, and their tempers cross and modify 
each other ! It seemed as if our people felt the 
worth and also the large affinities of their idol, by 
inviting good examples of Puritan intellects to honor 
his memory, when our leading Yankee poet and 
historian were called to pay their tributes at the 
obsequies of Irving. Then the two elements, the 
actual and the ideal, met together, and the two poles 
of the American mind were in unison. Our patriarch- 
poet was fitly chosen to give the eulogy over those 
fathers of our literature. Cooper and Irving ; and the 
fact and the occasion brought the New York and the 
New England mind into striking contrast and also 
harmony. . I may name him, William CuUen Bryant, 
without reserve here to-night, since age and absence 
from the country lift him into historical dignity, and 
I may characterize him as the noble and venerable 
exemplar of New England in New York — the prophet 
of Liberty as well as the poet of Nature, and com- 
bining in rare union the old Hebrew reverence with 
our modern largeness and fi'eedom. Well may the 
nation honor him for singing so grandly the Dirge 
of Slavery, and at the same time protesting against 
all trespass upon the constitutional rights of our 
States and people, and all wrong to trade and com- 
merce by unjust taxation and centralization. All 
honor to our poet and patriot for his service to our 
libei'ty and our law ! 

This affinity between the Puritan and Church- 
man mind, or between the New England subjective 



IN THE JSriNETEENTH CENTUEY. 53 

scholasticism and the New York Dutch-English ob- 
jective institutionalism, has shown itself from the 
beginning. Jonathan Edwards, the Plato, as Frank- 
lin was the Aristotle, of New England thought, the 
first metaphysical mind of America, undoubtedly felt 
it, when, in 1722, a youth under nineteen, he came 
to preach to a little knot of Presbyterians in a hall 
in William Street ; when he saw the face of God very 
near to him, as he mused on the banks of the Hud- 
son ; and when a ship arrived, " his soul eagerly 
catched at any news favorable to the interest and 
advancement of Christ's Kingdom." He much \nshed 
to stay here, and undoubtedly was as much calmed 
by the wholesome old-fashioned repose of Dutch and 
English institutions as cheered by the devotion and 
kindness of the people. 

How far assimilation in its various forms of 
thought and life is to go, we can only conjecture ; 
for the process has but begun. Our community, 
like every other community, must go through three 
stages of development to complete its Providential 
evolution : aggregation, accommodation, and assimila- 
tion. The first stage is aggregation, and that comes 
of course with the fact of residence. Here we are, 
about a million of us, aggregated on this healthy 
and charming island, and here we most of us expect 
and wish to stay. We are seeking our next stage, 
and wish accommodation not with entire success, 
and the city is distressed by prosperity, and is like 
an overgrowm boy, whose clothes are too small for his 
limbs, and he waits in half nakedness for his fitting 
garments. In some respects, the city itself is a 



54 NEW YORK 

majestic organism, and we have liglit, water, streets, 
and squares, mucli to our mind, always excepting 
the dirt. The scarcity of houses, the costs of rent, 
living, and taxation are grievous, and driving a large 
portion of our middling class into the country. Yet 
the city is full and overflowiug, and is likely to be. 
The work of assimilation is going on, and every 
debate, controversy, and party, brings the various 
elements together, and we are seeing each other 
whether we differ or agree. Great progress has 
been made in observing and appreciating our situa- 
tion and population. Probably New York knows 
itself better to-day than at any time since its im- 
perial proportions began to appear. In politics, 
police, philanthropy, education, and religion, we are 
reckoning our classes, numbers, and tendencies, and 
feeling our way towards some better harmony of 
ideas and interests. The whole population of the 
city was, by census of 1860, 813,669; and by the 
census of 1865, 726,386. The voters number 151,- 
838 ; native, 51,500 ; foreign, 77,475. Over twenty- 
one years, they who cannot read and write are 19,- 
199. Families number 148,683. Total of foreigners 
by census of 1860, was 383,717 ; and by census of 
1865, 313,417. Number of women by census of 
1865 was 36,000 more than of men, and of widows, 
over 32,000 ; being 25,000 more widows than widow- 
ers. The Germans, by the census of 1860, numbered 
119,984 ; and by the census of 1865, 107,269. This 
makes this city not the third, but the eighth city in 
the world as to German population. These German 
cities have a larger population : Berlin, Vienna, Bres- 



m THE NINETEENTH CENTUKY. 55 

lau, Cologne, Municli, Hamburg, and Dresden.* The 
Irish, by the census of 1860, number 203,700 ; and 
by the census of 1865, 161,334. New York now, 
we believe, has a million of residents, and either 
peculiar difficulties in the census commission of 1865, 
or peculiar influences after the war, led to the ap- 
pearance of diminished population. Certainly we 
have, of late, gained numbers, and have not lost in 
variety of elements to be assimilated. The national 
diversities are not hostile, and we are seeking out 
their best, instead of their worst, qualities. Italian 
art and French accomplishment we can apj)reciate 
without foro-ettino; that we are Americans. We are 
discerning in our New York Germany, something 
better than Lager Beer and Sunday Concerts, and 
learning to appeal to the sterling sense and indom- 
itable love of liberty of the countrymen of Luther 
and Gutenberg. The Irish among us, who make 
this the second if not the first Irish city of the 
world, and who contribute so largely to our ignorant 
and criminal returns, we are studying anew, and 
discerning their great service to industry and their 
great capacity for organization. We find among 
them good specimens of .the blood of the Clintons 
and the Emmets, and are bound to acknowledge 
that in purity, their wives and daughters may be 
an example to any class in America or Europe. Old 

* Population of German cities by the last census (1864) : Vienna, 578,525 ; 
Berlin, 609,733; Breslau, 156,644; Cologne, 117,000; Munich, 165,054; 
Hamburg, 135,389. The population of Hamburg is from the census of 18(51 as 
that city does not belong to the Zollverein, and did not come into the ZoUverein 
census of 1864. See lUustrirter Kalender, Leipzig, 1867, and Handbuch der 
Vergleichenden Statistik, von G. Fr. Kolb, Leipzig, 1865. 



56 NEW YOEK 

Israel is with us too in force, and some thirty syna- 
gogues of Jews manifest the power of the oldest 
organized religion, and the example of a peoj^le that 
cares wholly for its own sick and poor ; willing to 
meet Christians as friends and citizens, and learn our 
religion more from its own gospel of love, than from 
its old conclaves of persecution. We often see other 
types of the Oriental mind in our streets and houses, 
and it will be well for us when Asia is here repre- 
sented by able specimens of her mystical piety, and 
we learn of her something of the secret of her repose 
in God, and give her in return something of our art 
of bringing the will of God to be-:ir upon this stub- 
born earth, instead of losing sight of the earth in 
dreams of pantheistic absorption. In many ways the 
various elements are combining to shape our ideas 
and society, and fill out the measure of our practical 
education. 

Yet, probably, the most important assimilation, 
as already hinted, is that which is going on here 
between the various elements of our American life 
in this mother-city which is destined, apparently, to 
be to America what Home was to the tribes that 
thronged to its gates. What has been taking place 
in England is taking 23lace here, and the Independ- 
ents and Churchmen are coming together here as 
in England since the Kevolution of 1688, when ex- 
tremes were greatly reduced, and the independency 
of Milton and Cromwell began to reappear in com- 
bination with the church ways of Clarendon and 
Jeremy Taylor. The most significant part of the 
process is the union here of Puritan individualism 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 57 

and its intuitive thinking and bold ideas, with New 
York institutionalism, and its organizing method and 
objective mind. The Yankee is here, and means to 
stay, and is apparently greatly pleased with the posi- 
tion and reception, and enjoys the fixed order and 
established paths of his Knickerbocker hosts. It is 
remarkable that whilst New England numbered only 
some 20,000, or 19,517 of her people here, which is 
7,000 less than the nations of Old England in the 
city, by the census of 1860, they are so well received 
and effective, and fill so many and important places 
in business and the professions. By the census of 
1865, New York City has 17,856 natives of New 
England, and 19,699 natives of Old England ; a 
balance of 1,843 in favor of Old England. Yet, in 
the State at large, the result is different, for the 
population numbers 166,038 natives of New Eng- 
land, and 95,666 natives of Old England ; a balance 
of 70,372 in favor of New England. It is curious 
to note that the city had only 825 native Dutch in 
1865, and the State 4,254. In a philosoj)hical point 
of view, it is memorable that the Puritan mind is 
now largely in power, even in our church establish- 
ments that so depart from New England independ- 
ency, and the leading Presbyterian and E23iscopal 
preachers and scholars are largely from the Puritan 
ranks. Our best informed scholar in the philosophy 
of religion, who holds the chair of theological in- 
struction in the Presbyterian Seminary, is a New 
England Congregationalist, transplanted to New 
York. Nay, even the leading, or at least the most 
conspicuous, Roman Catholic theologian of New 



58 NEW YORK. 

York, is tlio son of u Connecticut Congregatioiiiilist 
minister, and carries the lineal blood and mental 
liabit of liis ancestor, Jonathan Edwards, into the 
illustration and d(,>fence of the Ivonian creed. It is 
^vorthy of note that our most phiJosophical historian 
is the son of a Massachusetts Congregational min- 
ister, and a lover of the old scholastic thinking, and 
a chanii)ion of the ideal school of Edwards and 
Channing in its faith and inde])endency ; author, too, 
of perlia})s the most bold and characteristic word of 
America to Europe, the oration of February 22, 1866, 
that was the answer of our new world to Bi'itish 
Toryism, and Romish Obscurantism, ^vhether to the 
Premiers mock neutral manifesto, or tlie Pope's En- 
cyclical Letter. Some of the Puritans who keep their 
independency, catch the New York organizing pas- 
sion ; and Congregationalism, which, after making four 
unsuccessful attempts to win a footing, at last found 
it in 1819, has given to the city a body of clergy 
^vho understand the power of institutions as well as 
ideas. The pastor of the Tabernacle has written his 
name u])on the roll of our patriotic leaders ; and 
the pastor of All Souls, the First Congregational 
Church in New York, has led the grandest of our 
national chaiities, and written a chapter of humanity, 
that, in its ^\'a\^, has never been surpassed if ecpialled 
on eartli, in the Sanitar}' Conunission. On all sides 
New England independency works into the large 
organic methods of this metropolis and State. Large, 
indeed, is the lios])itality that has been shown to 
us New Euglanders in this city of our adoption, 
alike to our thought and our people. The press 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. 59 

and the parlor have been alike generous, and we 
can ask no fairer treatment for our literature than 
has been given our authors in the admirable Cyclo- 
pedia of American Literature by our fellow-members 
of the Society — the brothers Duyckinck — one of whom 
we greet here cordially, and the other we tenderly 
remember, to-night. 

It is not amiss to remember that of the 125 
delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1846, 
forty members were natives of New England, or 
nearly one third of the whole number — sl fact quite 
remarkable, when we consider that in this State 
the New Englanders are but about a twentieth part 
of the population. A distinguished and truly hon- 
ored historian of Massachusetts once, in the heat of 
party strife, called New York State a " soulless 
giant, whose honorable history is yet to be written." 
Without rehearsing the noble deeds of New York 
of old and of late, we trust that our excellent friend 
will remember that a great deal of New England 
soul has lived in New York, and that the com- 
munity cannot be soulless that has harbored and 
honored such men as Rufus King, Postmaster-Gen- 
eral Osgood, Judge Peck, Henry Wheaton, Silas 
Wright, Jonathan M. Wainwright, and William 
Ware, and hosts of other New England men. The 
honorable history of New York has not indeed been 
written ; not because the topic is not honorable, but 
because it has not been fully, except in its early 
periods, written at all. Honor to old Massachusetts, 
who still keeps with New York the palm once shared 
with Virginia, that third of our three oldest States. 



60 NEW YOEK 

But liow mucli harder tlie problem to solve liere 
than there — New York here, with great nations pour- 
ing their immigrant hosts into her domain, whether 
to stay in her great city, where eighty dialects are 
said to be spoken, or make their way westward over 
her roads and canals — and Massachusetts there, with 
little comparative interruption of her old work of 
labor and education, and in comparative quiet and 
seclusion with her own sons and dauo;hters about 
her. Massachusetts and New York ! I name them 
gratefully and lovingly here to-night, and he is no 
true American who denies their foremost place 
among the architects of our Liberty and our Union. 
Virginia I would gladly name too with her ancient 
sisters, and God grant that some future orator here 
may be able in truth to note her new greatness, and 
restore her lost name. In 1800 she led New York 
in population by nearly 300,000, and in 1860 fell 
behind her about 2,300,000, and Pennsylvania suc- 
ceeds to her honors, and approaches, but does not 
reach, the greatness of the Empire State. We shall 
be glad to greet the State of George Washington 
on the same platform of liberty as the State of 
William Penn, and so renew the old fellowship 
with fresh hope. 

But why set any limit to our affinities, and not 
rather rejoice in the boundless fellowship of State 
with State, faith with faith, and nation with nation 
here opened? Here we may, if we will, find and 
meet on generous terms leading minds of every type 
and culture ; and we ought to have a large human- 
ity, an imperial conscience, purpose, and sympathy, 



IN THE mKETEENTH CEISTTUEY. 61 

wortliy of our great liberty and opportunity. Here 
we may not only find the scattered truths that have 
been, to use Milton's figure, torn asunder like the 
mangled body of the fabled Osiris ; but we ought 
to have what is better than abstract truth, the 
broken limbs of our great and glorious manhood 
here brought together, and in fellowship with the 
wise and good of every name and race, we should 
discern the true body of our completed humanity, 
in a catholic largeness that will not yield the palm 
to Paris or London, nor need to learn imperial 
breadth from Rome or Russia. Here already, in its 
best hours, our New York has glimpses of the true 
human fellowship, which is the organized liberty of 
the nineteenth century. We need some effective 
centre of public fellowship, where all elements of 
generous thought and life meet together, and bring 
the present and the past together in love and honor. 
Where should we find it but here, where sects and 
parties are ignored, and we meet as citizens and 
men ? 

It is the province of the New York Historical 
Society to keep up the connection of the New York 
of the past with the New York of to-day, and zeal- 
ously to guard and intei'pret all the historical mate- 
rials that preserve the continuity of our public life. 
It is to be lamented that so little remains around 
us to keep alive the memory of the ancient time ; 
and everj^thing almost that we see is the work of 
the new days. Sad it is that all the old neighbor- 
hoods are broken up, and the old houses and churches 
are mostly swept away by our new prosperity. But 



62 NEW YORK 

how impressive are our few landmarks ! We all 
could join in tlie Centennial Jubilee of St. Paul's, 
and wish well to its opening future. So, too, we 
can greet our neighbors of the John Street Church 
in their Centennial, and thank God for the hundred 
years of New York Methodism. Who of us can 
pass without reflection by the old Middle Dutch 
Church, now our Post-Office, in Nassau Street, and 
without recalling the years and events that have 
passed since 1*729, when it was opened for worship 
in the Dutch tongue? In March, 1764, the preaching 
there was, for the first time, in English, and in 
August, 1844, Dr. De Witt gave an outline of its 
histoiy, and pronounced the benediction in Dutch ; 
and that old shrine of the Knickerbockers is now 
the busy brain of the nation and the world, and 
receives and transmits some forty tons of thought 
a day. What would one of those old Rip Van 
Winkles of 1729 have thought, if he could have 
prolonged his Sunday afternoon nap in one of those 
ancient pews till now, and awoke to watch the day's 
mail, with news by the last steamers and the Atlantic 
cable for all parts of the great continent ! Our 
Broadway, ever changing, and yet the same old 
road, is perhaps our great historical monument, and 
the historical street of America by eminence. All 
the men of our history have walked there, and all 
nations and tribes have trodden its stones and dust. 
In our day what have we seen there — what proces- 
sions, armies, pageants ! What work would be more 
an American as well as New York history, than 
Broadway described and illustrated with text and 



IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 63 

portraits, from the times when Stuyvesant astonished 
the Dutch with his dignity to the years that have 
brought the hearse of our murdered President and 
the carriage of his successor along its stately avenue ? 
Thank heaven for old Broadway — noble type of 
American civilization — from the Battery to Harlem 
River ! and may the ways of the city be as straight 
as the lines of its direction, and as true to the march 
of the Providence of God ! 

But is not our Society itself an historical monu- 
ment, and does not th.e past combine with, the 
present and future in our records and collections ? 
This Sixty-second Anniversary revives the whole 
history of our Society since 18C4. These busts recall 
the faces of Hamilton and Jay, George and De Witt 
Clinton, — and you, Mr. President, are not alone in 
your office, and we can almost hear the voice of 
Luther Bradish, and see the forms of your noted 
predecessors, Egbert Benson, Gouverneur Morris, Dr. 
Hosack, De Witt Clinton, James Kent, and Albert 
Gallatin, with you as you occupy your chair to-night. 
One aged member is here, wliose life bridges over 
the chasm, and in him old New York and young 
are one before us now. He was born in 1786, when 
the city had but 23,000 inhabitants, and now he 
presides over the bureau of immigration, that some- 
times receives that number in a month,, and averages 
16,000 or 17,000 monthly, or 200,000 a year. Stout 
specimen of a living man — we will not say venerable 
relic of the eighteenth century ; contemporary of 
Hamilton and Jay, Morris, Livingston, and the Clin- 
tons ; friend of Paulding, Irving, and Cooper ; re- 



64 NEW YORK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

presentative of tlie eighteenth, century and the uine- 
teenth; embodiment of the Dutch, English, and Amer- 
ican times ; master of our earliest literature and our last 
— Gulian Crommelin Verplanck ! we, who are young 
New York, this goodly company of staunch men and 
fair women, a thousand strong, with a million behind 
us, we salute old New York in you to-night, and 
implore the blessing of God upon your venerable 
head. Heaven grant that the new generation may 
be able to transmit some such specimens of the 
sound mind in the sound body as yours ! 

What the orator who ushers in the twentieth 
century here, or who celebrates your One Hundredth 
Anniversary, may have to say as he reviews the 
nineteenth century, as Dr. Miller reviewed the eight- 
eenth, I will not undertake to say. What we 
should wish and pray for is clear. Clear that we 
should wish the new times to keep the wisdom and 
virtue of the old with all the new light and pro- 
gress ; clear that after our trying change from the 
old quarters to the new, we may build a nobler 
civilization on the new base, and so see better days 
than ever before ; that the great city that shall be 
here, should be not only made up of many men, but 
of true manhood, and be not only the capital of the 
world, but the city of God ; its great Park, the cen- 
tral ground of noble fellowship ; its great wharves and 
markets, the seat of honorable industry and com- 
merce ; its public halls, the headquarters of free and 
orderly Americans ; its churches, the shrines of the 
blessed fiiith and love that join man with man, and 
give open communion with God and heaven. 



APPENDIX. 



The author lias endeavored to gather all important information as 
to the present condition and prospects of the city, and is grateful to the 
many citizens and friends who have given him assistance in the eifort. 
To meet the express wishes of judicious advisers, and to give more per- 
manent historical value to the publication, he is induced to present in 
this Appendix the most important statistics in his possession as to the 
wealth and population, health, crime, charities and corrections, and edu- 
cation of the city. 



THE POPULATION AND WEALTH OF NEW YOPvK. 



CENSUS OF THE CITY. 

1§60. 



POPULATION. 



DWELLINGS. 



First 

Second 

Third 

Fourth 

Fifth 

Sixth. 

Seventh , 

Eighth 

Ninth 

Tenth 

Eleventh 

Twelfth 

Thirteenth 

Fourteenth 

Fifteenth 

Sixteenth 

Seventeenth 

Eighteenth 

Nineteenth 

Twentieth 

Twenty-first 

Twenty-second , . 

Total 

5 



18,120 
2,507 
3,757 
21,994 
22,341 
26,698 
40,006 
39,722 
44,386 
29,051 
59,963 
30,647 
32,917 
28,087 
27,588 
45,182 
72,775 
57,464 
32,841 
67,554 
49,025 
61,749 



778 


3,184 


202 


363 


407 


615 


1,015 


3,631 


1,260 


5,192 


1,386 


5,300 


2,358 


7,354 


2,755 


8,110 


3,792 


8,586 


2,045 


6,282 


2,743 


18,054 


3.296 


4,S81 


1,829 


7,312 


1,490 


5,969 


2,781 


4,216 


3,412 


3.364 


3,592 


15,837 


3,685 


9,928 


2,950 


5,463 


4,307 


13,956 


4,226 


8,621 


4,029 


11,099 



814,254 



54,338 



155,707 



66 



APPENDIX. 



POPULATION OF THE CITY AT VAEIOUS PEPvIODS. 



1656 1,000 

1673 2,500 

1696 4,302 

1731 8,628 

1756 10,381 

1773 21,876 

1786 23,614 

1790 33,131 

1800 60,489 

1810 96,373 



1820 123,706 

1825 166,089 

1830 202,589 

1835 270,068 

1840 312,852 

1845 371,223 

1850 515,394 

1855 629,810 

1860 814,254 



The falling oif of the population, according to the State Census of 
1865, is ascribed to various causes, such as the alarms and disasters of 
the war, and the reluctance of many persons to have their names known, 
in fear of military conscription. It is certain that the city has more 
inhabitants now than ever, and thei'e is no vacant house on the island. 



WEALTH OF NEW YORK. 

Statement of Valuation of Property in the City and County of New 
York, from 1805 to 1825, iotk inclusive. 



DATE. 


VALUATION. 


CITY AND 
COUNTY TAX. 


STATE TAX. 


TOTAL OF CITY 

AND 

STATE TAX. 


CTS. DOLS. 


1805 


$25,645,867 
26,529,630 
24,959,955 
25,118,720 
24,782,267 
25,486,370 
26,045,730 
26,240,040 
27,650,230 
28,091,497 
81,636,042 
82,074,200 
78,895,735 
80,254,091 
79,113,061 
69,530,753 
67,286,070 
71,285,141 
70,940,820 
83,075,676 

101,160,046 


$127,094 87 

127.814 97 
129,155 09 
138,984 18 
139,027 39 
129,727 15 
176,978 25 
174,920 17 
174,727 94 
214,225 09 
197,613 38 
180,653 94 
216,720 44 
255,740 70 
250,140 21 
270,361 19 
299,430 30 
30.3,105 61 
351,814 36 
353,329 89 
336,868 82 






50 per 1. 


1806 






m ' 

52 ' 

55 ' 

56 ' 

51 ' 
68 ' 
67 ' 
63 ' 
26 ' 
4U ' 
42" ' 
47 ' 
42 ' 
4U ' 
49 ' 
49i ' 

52 i ' 
59 'r ' 

m ' 

38 1 ' 




1807,. 








1808 








1809 








1810 








1811 








1812 








1813 . 








1814 








1815.. 
1816.. 

1817.. 
1818.. 
1819.. 
1820.. 
1821.. 
1822.. 
1823.. 
1824. . 
1825.. 


$163,372 08 
164,148 50 
157,591 27 
80.254 09 
79,113 61 
69,530 75 
68,285 07 
71,289 14 
70,940 80 
'41,537 84 
50,580 03 


$361,285 46 
344,802 54 
374,311 71 
335,994 88 
329,453 82 
339,891 94 
367,215 37 
374,397 75 
422,755 16 
394,857 73 
387,448 85 





The debt of the city, December 81, 1865, was $33,326,524 50. 



APPENDIX. 



6T 



Statement of the Value of Real and Personal Estate in the City and 
County of New YoH; with the amount raised hy Tax, from the year 
1826 to 1866, loth inclusive. 









TOTAL VALUE 






VALtTE OP 


VALUE OP PER- 




AMOUNT 




REAL ESTATE. 


SONAL ESTATE. 


AND PERSONAL. 


RAISED BY TAX. 


1826 


$64,804,050 


$72,434,981 


$107,238,931 


$383,759 89 


1827 


72,617,770 


49,549,156 


112,311,926 


437,692 02 


1828 


77,138,880 


33,879,653 


114,019,533 


485,751 72 


1829 


76,130.430 


35,672,636 


111,803,066 


507,107 24 


1830 


87,603,580 


87,684,938 


125,288,518 


509,178 44 


1831 


95,594,335 


31,966,194 


137,560,259 


572,104 05 


1832 


104,160,605 


40,741,723 


144,902,328 


665,385 74 


1838 


114,124,566 


42,366,976 


166,491,542 


971,854 64 


1834 


123,249,280 


53,299,231 


186,548,511 


835,605 49 


1835 


143,742,425 


64.991,278 


218,728,703 


965,602 94 


1836 


233,732,303 


75,758,617 


309,500,020 


1,085,130 44 


1837 


196,450,109 


67,297,241 


263,747,350 


1,244,972 15 


1838 


104,543,359 


69,609,582 


264,152,941 


1,486,993 73 


1839 


196,940,134 


73,920,885 


270,869,019 


1,852,826 51 


1840 


187,221,714 


65,011,801 


252,283,515 


1,854,885 29 


1841 


186,359,948 


64,843,972 


251,194,920 


1,394,136 65 


1842 


176,513,092 


61,292,559 


287,805,651 


2,031,382 66 


1843 


164,955,314 


64,274,765 


229,229,079 


1,747,516 59 


1844 


171,937,591 


64,789,552 


236,727,143 


1,988,118 56 


1845 


177,207,990 


62,787,527 


239,995,517 


2,096,191 18 


1846 


181,480,534 


61,471,470 


244,952,004 


2,526,146 71 


1847 


187,315,386 


59,837,913 


247,153,299 


2,581,776 30 


1848 


193.029,076 


61.164,447 


254,168,523 


2,715,510 25 


1849 


197,741,919 


58,455,224 


256,197,148 


3,005,762 52 


1850 


207,142,576 


78,919,240 


286,061,816 


3,230,085 02 


1851 


227,015,856 


93,095,001 


320,110,857 


2,924,455 94 


1852 


253,278,384 


98,490,042 


351,768,426 


3,880,511 00 


1853 


294,637,296 


118,994,137 


413,631,382 


5,066,698 74 


1854 


330,300,396 


131,721,338 


462,021,734 


4,845,386 07 


1855 


336,975,866 


150,022,312 


486,998,278 


5,843,822 89 


1856 


340,972,098 


170.744,393 


511,740,491 


7,075,425 72 


1857 


352,958,803 


168,216,449 


521,175,252 


8,111,758 09 


1858 


368,346,296 


162,847,994 


531,194,290 


8,621,091 31 


1859 


378,954,930 


172,968,192 


551,923,122 


9,860,926 09 


1860 


398,533,619 


178,697,637 


577,230,956 


9,758,507 86 


1861 


406,955,665 


174,624,306 


581,579,971 


11,627,682 28 


1862 


399,551,314 


172.416,031 


571,967,345 


9,906,271 10 


1863 


402,196,652 


192,000,161 


594,196,813 


11,556,672 18 


1864 


410,695,485 


223,920,405 


634,615,890 


13,705,092 86 


1865 


427,368,864 


181,423,471 


608,792,335 


18,202,857 56 


1866 


478,993,084 


257,994,974 


736,988.058 


16,950,767 88 



68 



APPENDIX. 



COMMERCE OF NEW YORK. 
{From the Eeport of the Charnber of Commerce.) 

TONNAGE OF THE POET OF NEW YORK AND OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Statement exhibiting the registered^ enrolled., and licensed Tonnage he- 
longing to the Port of New Yorh, for each year., from 1857 to June 
30, 1865, inclusive. {Official.) 



Kegisteked. 
Trnis. 95t}is. 

1857 802,356 .. 10 

1858 840,449 .. 08 

1859 844,432 .. 24 

1860 838,449 .. 51 

1861 912,942 .. 79 

1862 921,983 .. 03 

1863 846,445 .. 79 

1864 723,812 .. 49 

1865 471,473 .. 00 

" new meas.. 192,545 .. 69 



Enrolled 


AND 






Licensed. 


Total. 




Tons. 


95ths. 


Tons. 


95</iS. 


575,068 . 


. 51 . 


1,377,424 


. 61 


592,256 . 


. 33 . 


1,432,705 


. 41 


599,928 . 


. 44 . 


1,444,360 


. 68 


625,551 . 


. 47 . 


1,464,001 


. 03 


626,412 . 


. 44 . 


1,539,355 


. 28 


645,232 . 


. 67 . 


1,567,215 


. 60 


777,554 . 


, 24 . 


1,624,000 


. 08 


931,157 . 


. 85 . 


1,654,970 


. 39 


751,791 . 


. 50 . 


1,223,264 


.. 50 


200,786 . 


. 85 . 


393,332 


.. 54 



Statement exhibiting the tonnage of American and Foreign Vessels en- 
tered and cleared from the several districts of the State of New 
Torlc, during the year ending June 30, 1865. {Official.) 

Entered. Cleared. 

, ^ — \ ' ^ ■ s 

American Foreign American Foreign 

f Districts. Vessels. Vessels. Total. Vessels. Vessels. Total. 

Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tods. 

Genesee 27,540 92,016 119,556 76,682 92,197 168,879 

Oswego 213,858 222,694 436,552 186,265 221,299 407,564 

Niagara 56,378 49,698 106,076 932 49,683 60,615 

Buffalo Creek 372,032 88,964 460,996 375,666 86,497 462,163 

Oswegatchie 33,665 33,665 .... 33,625 33,625 

Champlain 54,306 48,735 103,041 54,727 40,534 95,261 

Cape Vincent. 144,994 95,601 240,595 144,145 93,189 237,334 

Dunkirk 571 1,305 1,876 232 1,305 1,537 

SagHarbor .... 614 .... 614 

New York 774,136 1,301,341 2,075,477 629,186 1,473,729 2,102,915 

Total State of New York. 1,643,815 1,934,019 3,577,834 1,468,449 2,092,058 3,560,607 

OtherStates 1,299,846 1,282,948 2,582,794 1,656,686 1,503,065 3,059,750 

Total United States 2,943,661 3,216,967 6,160,628 3,025,184 3,595,123 6,620,257 



APPEISTDLX. 



69 



ARRIVALS OF SHIPPING AT NEW YORK IN 1865. 

FROM FOREIGN POETS. 



Steamers. 
454 



Steamers. 
1,604 



Ships. 


Barks. 


Brigs. 


479 


1,024 
COASTWISE. 


1,635 


Sliips. 


Barks. 


Brigs. 


85 


144 


299 



Schooners. 
1,070 

Schooners. 
5,840 



Total, foreign ports 4,662 

" coastwise 7,972 



Grand total for 1865 12,634 

Whole number, 1864 12,825 



Decrease. 



AKEIVALS DURING PREVIOUS TEARS. 



Foreign, 
all Classes. 

1865 4,662 

1864 4,841 

1863 .. 5,173 

1862 5,487 

1861 5,122 

1860 4,451 

1859 4,027 

1858 3,483 

1857 3,902 

1856 3,869 



191 



Coasttcise, 
all Classes. 

7,972 

7,984 

7,937 

7,148 

6,977 

8,445 

7,809 

7,243 

6,097 

6,109 



COMMERCE OF NEW YORK FOR THE YEAR 1865. 

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF THE POET OF NEW YORK FOR THE TEAR 1865. 

The following statistics of the commerce of the port of New York 
for the year 1865, showing the imports and exports classified, with a 
comparison with previous years, have been compiled from the official 
returns at the Custom House : 

FOREIGN IMPORTS AT NEW TORK. 

1S62. 1S63. 1§64. 1§65. 

Dry-Goods $56,121,227 .. $67,274,547 .. $71,589,752 .. $91,965,138 

General Merchandise 117,140,813 .. 118,814,219 .. 144,270,386 .. 130,654,000 

Specie 1,390,277 .. 1,525,811 .. 2,265,622 .. 2,123,281 

Total imports $174,652,317 ..$187,614,577 ..$218,125,760 ..$224,742,419 



10 APPE]STHX. 

It appears from this statement that the total for the year exceeds the 
total of any year since the war, because of the very heavy dry-goods 
imports last year. Our imports of cotton alone have decreased about 
six millions. We now give, for comparison, the previous years since 
1851, classifying them into dutiable, free, and specie. Under the head 
of dutiable is included, both the value entered for consumption and that 
entered for warehousing. The free goods run very light, as nearly all 
the imports now are dutiable. 



FOEEIGN IMPORTS AT NEW TOKK. 

Dutiable. Free Goods. Specie. Total. 

1851 1119,592,264 .. $9,719,771 .. $2,049,543 .. $131,361,578 

1852 115,336,052 .. 12,105,342 .. 2,408,225 .. 129,849,619 

1853 179,512,412 .. 12,156,387 .. 2,429,083 .. 194,097,882 

1854 163,494,984 .. 15,768,916 .. 2,107,572 . 181,371.472 

1855 142,^00,661 . . 14,103,946 . . 855,631 . . 157,860,238 

1856 193,839,646 . . 17,902,578 . . 1,814,425 . . 213,556,649 

1857 196,279,362 .. 21,440,734 .. 12,898,033 .. 230,618,129 

1858 128,578,256 . . 22,024,691 . . 2,264,120 . . 152,867,067 

1859 .... 213,640,363 . . 28,708,732 . . 2,816,421 . . 245,165,516 

1860 201,401,683 . . 28,006,447 . . 8,852,330 . . 238,260,460 

1861 95,326,459 .. 30,353,918 .. 37,088,413 .. 162,768,790 

1862 149,970,415 . 23,291,625 .. 1,390,277 .. 174,652,317 

1863 174,521,766 . . 11,567,000 . . 1,525,811 . . 187,614,577 

1864 204,128,236 .. 11,731,902 .. 2,265,622 .. 218,125,760 

1865 212,208,301 .. 10,410,837 .. 2,123,281 .. 224,742,419 



IMPORTS OF DRY-GOODS AT THE PORT OF NEW YORK 
FOR THE YEAR 1865. 

Miscel- Total 

Wool. Cotton. Silk. Flax. laneous. Value. 

1865 36,074,585 .. 15,350,064 .. 20,556,261 .. 15,402,602 .. 4,581,626 .. 91,965,138 

The following statement shows the receipts for duties for the last four 
years : 

RECEIPTS FOR CUSTOMS AT NEW YORK. 

1S62. 1863. 1§64. 1S65. 

$52,254,116 72 .. $58,886,054 42 .. 66,937,127 71 .. $101,772,905 94 

The annexed detailed statement shows the exports of domestic pro- 
duce, and specie a,nd bullion, during each month of the last four years : 



APPENDIX. 71 



EXPORTS OF DOMESTIC PEODUCE. 

1§62. 1S63. 1§64. 1§65. 

$149,179,591 .. $164,249,177 . $201,855,989 .. $174,247,454 



EXPOETS OF SPECIE AND BULLION. 

1§62. 1S63. 1§64. 1§65. 

59,437,021 .. $49,754,066 .. $50,825,621 .. $30,003,683 

TOTAL EXPOETS. 

1§63. 1§63. 1§64. 1§65. 

,371,848 .. $220,465,034 .. $272,648,163 .. $208,630,282 



BANKING^ IN NEA\^ YORK. 



THE NEW YORK CLEAEING HOUSE. 

OPERATIONS OF THE TEAR 1865-1866. — AGGEEGATE 0PEBATI0N3 OF THE 
THIRTEEN TEAE8, 1853-1866. 

This institution has been organized thirteen years, during which time 
its aggregate transactions have amounted to $158,070,344,871.33. 

Its transactions for the year ending Oct. 1, 1866, were $29,783,282,- 
020.44, being in excess of the year ending Oct. 1, 1865, $2,715,132,- 
570.86; $4,800,366,159.59 greater than the year ending Oct. 1, 1864, 
and $17,624,024,722.65 more than the average for thirteen years. 

The association numbers fifty-seven banks, with a capital of $81,- 
777,000. Of this number, nine are organized under the banking laws of 
the State of New York, and the remainder (forty-nine) under the 
National Banking Law. 

At the time of its organization, fifty-two banks composed the asso- 
ciation, with an aggregate capital of $49,103,362; $32,666,638 less than 
its present capital. 

The first weekly statement published by the associated banks was 
on October 15, 1853, and was as follows: 

Capital, $49,103,362; Loans and Discounts, $87,837,273; SiJecie, 
$11,330,172 ; Circulation and Net Deposits, $46,900,212. 



72 



APPENDIX. 



The statement on October 13, 1866, was: . 

Capital, $81,770,000; Loans aind Discounts, $276,443,219; Specie 
and Legal Tenders, $88,756,424 ; Circulation and Net Deposits, 
$257,035,895. 

The percentage of specie to net liabilities on October 15, 1858, was 
24.16 per cent. The percentage of specie and legal tenders, October 13, 
1866, was 34.53 per cent. 

The circulation of the banks of the association, previous to the 
passage of the " National Currency Act," averaged about $8,000,000. 
The smallest amount of circulation reported in the weekly statement 
was $2,720,666, on March 4, 1865. 

The largest amount was in the last statement, October 15, 1866, viz., 
$28,940,538, an increase of $26,219,872 in nineteen months. 

The following banks are the only ones in the city that are not mem- 
bers of the association : 



1. Dry Dock Bank. 

2. Bull's Head Bank. 

3. New York County Nat. Bank. 

4. Fifch National Bank. 

5. Sixth National Bank. 

6. Eighth National Bank. 



7. Manufacturers' National Bank. 

8. American National Bank. 

9. Oroton National Bank. 

10. Bowery National Bank. 

11. National Currency Bank. 

12. Wooster Sherman Bank. 



Aggregate operations for thirteen years — October,1853, to October, 
1866. I. — The aggregate exchanges. II.— The aggregate casli balances. 
III. — The average daily exchanges. 



Exchanges. 
Oct., 1853 to Oct., 1866. . $151,290,133,640 51 



Cash Balances Paid. 

^6,780,211,230 82 



Average Daily Exchanges. 

Oct., 1865 to Oct., 1866 93,541,195 16 



Average Daily Bal. 

3,472,752 79 



The Clearing House is one of the important financial institutions of 
the City of New York. The amount of labor, time, and expense saved 
to the banks by this medium is almost incalculable. In the first place, 
over twenty-five hundred accounts on the ledgers of the banks were 
instantly closed. The daily exchanges formerly occupied the time of 
one or two bank clerks five or six hours per day, accompanied with 
frequent disputes. Now the daily transactions of over one hundred 
millions are accomplished in one hour, and with perfect accuracy and 
satisfaction. — J. S. Homam, Banker^ Magazine. 



APPEISDIX. 



'73 



RELATIVE VALUE OF THE EEAL AND PERSONAL ESTATE 

IN THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORE, AS ASSESSED IN 1865-66. 



WARDS. 


ASSESSMENTS OP 1865. 


ASSESSMENTS OF 1866. 


INCREASE. 


First 


35,249,250 
19,986,200 
25,722,800 

9,411,200 
21,217,300 
13,416,600 
12,417,599 
18,391,600 
15,940,200 

9,124,600 

9,460,325 
18,177,305 

5,553,400 
12,686,800 
28,277,000 
18,867,450 
18,768,200 
38,387,050 
23,070,940 
18,177,900 
35,322,250 
19,825,515 


40,077,550 
21,295,500 
28,559,900 

9,488,350 
22,182,900 
13,734,600 
12,562,799 
18,866,700 
16,295,600 

9,691,800 
11,042,000 
18,381,650 

5,645,700 
13,379,300 
31,570,300 
19,807,310 
22,022,300 
41,004,200 
37,686,050 
18,990,910 
42,704,950 
24,052,715 


4,828,300 


Second 


1,309,300 


Third 

Fourth 

Fifth 


2,837 100 

77,150 

965,600 


Sixth 


318,000 


Seventh 

Eighth 

Ninth 


145,200 
475,100 
355,400 


Tenth 


567,200 


Eleventh 

Twelfth 


1,581,675 
204,375 


Thirteenth 

Fourteenth 

FiCteenth 

Sixteenth 

Seventeenth 

Eighteenth 

Nineteenth 

Twentieth 

Twenty-first 

Twenty-second . . 


92,300 

693,000 

3,293,300 

939,860 

3,254,100 

2,617,150 

14,565,110 

813,010 

7,382,700 

4,227,200 


Total 


427,450,984 


478,993,084 


51,542,100 


Resident 

Non-Resident.. .. 


PKKSONAL ESTATE. 

162,982,154 
18,441,317 


PKESONAL ESTATE. 

206,609,278 
51,385,696 


PERSONAL ESTATE. 

43,627,124 
32,944,379 


Total 


181,423,471 


257,994,974 


76,571,503 



Total Real and Personal for 1865 608,874,455 

Total Real and Personal for 1866 736,988,058 

Total Increase 128,113,603 

Total Valuation for 1865 608,874,455 

Total Valuation for 1866 736,988,058 

Increase in 1866 ...128,113,603 

Total Valuation in County ...736,988,058 

A. J. WILLIAMSON, ) Commissioners 

J. W. ALLEN, \ of 

J. W. BROWN, 3 Taxes and Assessments. 



u 



APPENDIX. 



This paper, from Colonel Andrew Warner, is important as illustrating 
the relation of Savings Banks to the property of the city and the credit 
of the nation. 

ABSTRACT OF OFFICIAL REPORTS OF SAVINGS BANKS IN 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK, VIZ.: 





. 






Investments. 








= 




A t 










CO 


Open 






Surplus. 


Invested in 


c: 


"S 


Accouuts. 


Depositors. 


Bon<ls 




Real Estate. 




o 






and 


Public Stocks. 








'A 






Mortgage* 








1855. 


16 


122,921 


26,111,719 20 


13,265,515 27 


11,424,885 




686,867 15 


1856. 


16 


132,737 


28,138,578 26 


12,987,581 60 


12,895,896 22 




715,468 44 


1858. 


16 


154,443 


32,615,184 53 


15,400,206 80 


14,983,874 94 


1,957,283 02 


720,421 29 


1859. 


16 


169,997 


36,806,426 29 


15,750,382 89 


18,883,860 04 


1,931,369 74 


828,030 56 


1860. 


17 


196,619 


43,410,090 88 


16,466,964 76 


24,508,582 61 


1,942,394 71 


854,528 97 


1861. 


21 


217,964 


48,988,836 79 


18,528,817 42 


27,618,651 48 


2,267,000 47 


789,589 24 


1862. 


21 


205,169 


45,085,026 83 


17,618,330 02 


23,923,133 03 


2,278,581 54 


746,808 25 


1863. 


21 


229,468 


51,035,233 27 


17,134,349 90 


29,266,917 94 


2,912,906 86 


812,186 23 


1864. 


22 


259,570 


62,174,62.3 97 


16,181,279 38 


41,760,255 10 


3,716,981 45 


905,664 33 


1865. 


23 


294,290 


72,928,854 59 


15,687,091 10 


52,444,159 57 


5,249,107 49 


1,055,878 23 


1866. 


23 


299,538 


76,989,505 56 


16,559,602 54 


57,300,441 96 


6,017,828 38 


1,105,773 29 



The first bank established in this city was the Bank for Savings, 
which commenced operations in Chambers Street, 3d July, 1819. 

The Seamen's, the next chartered, in 1829 



The Greenwich " 

The Bowery " 

East River " 

Inst, for Sav. Merch. Clerks " 

Dry Dock , " 

Manhattan " 

Emigrant Industrial " 

Broadway " 

Irving " 

Mariners' " 

Mechanics' and Traders' " 

Sixpenny " 

Bloomingdale " 

Rose Hill " 

German " 

Union Dime " 

Citizens' " 

Atlantic " 

Franklin " 

Harlem " 

Market " 

Peoples' -. " 



.1833 
.1834 
.1848 
.1848 
.1848 
.1850 
.1850 
.1851 
.1851 
.1852 
.1852 
.1853 
.1854 
.1854 
1859 
.1859 
.1860 
.1860 
.1860 
.1868 
.1863 
.1863 



APPENDIX. 15 



II. HEALTH OF THE CITY. 



DEATHS IN 1865 : GENERAL SUMMARY. 

Total number of deaths reported in [Total number of adults 10,039 

1S65, was 24,843 Total number of children 14,804 

Divided thus : " Total number of deceased per- 

White persons 24,421 sons 24,843 

Colored persons 422 1 From which deduct : 

1 Premature births 233 

Total 24,843 Malformations 31 

i Old age 390 

Male adults 5,433 Suicides, various 42 

Male children 7,902 . Casualties 352 

[Drowned 175 

Total males 13,335 Sunstroke 11 

I Burned or Scalded 105 

Female adults 4,606 Killed or Murdered 7 

Female children 6,902 i Heat, effects of 3 

Poison 12 



Total females ll,508i 

Total 1,361 

Total 24,843 Total number of deaths from disease.. 23,482 

I Total 24,843 

N. B. — Age for division of adults and children, 20 years. 

F. A. Boole, City Inspector. 



LETTER FROM DR. ELISHA HARRIS. 

To Rev. S. Osgood, D. D. 

Deae Sir : The population of the City of New York, according to 
the Census of 1790, was, at the beginning of the last decennium of the 
18th century, 33,131. In the year 1800, the Census returned 60,489, 
which showed an increase of 83 per cent, upon the city's population in 
10 years. The next decennial period — the first of the present century 
— there was an increase of 59 per centum ; but during the succeeding 
four years, a brief period of war, there was a decrease amounting to 1 
per centum, or a retrogression of nearly 10,000 in the total population. 
Since that period there has been a steady and rapid increase in the pop- 
ulation, until the commencement of the war of the Rebellion. 

In a retrospective estimate of the state of the public health, the 
Mortuary Recoi'd is a trustworthy index, if we note the nature and 



76 



APPENDIX. 



fatality of each great epidemic visitation. The following statement, in 
columns of population, deaths, and death-rates on population, are 
authentic : 





Total percentage 

of the increase in 

population in the 

previous years. 


Total population 
of the city. 


Total mortality 
that year. 


Death-rate estimated by 

number deaths in 1,000 of 

population. 


1814 


Decrease of 
about O'l in 
three years. 


95,519 


1,961 


20-^ 


1820 


Increase in six 
years 30 per cent. 


123,706 


3,522 


28i, Two epidemics. 


1825 


Increase in five 
years 34 per cent. 


166,086 


4,920 


23| 


1830 


Increase in five 
years 19 per. cent. 


197,112 


5,522 


28, One epidemic. 


1835 


Increase in five 
years 36 per cent. 


268,089 


7,096 


26i 


1840 


Increase in five 
years 17 per cent. 


312,710 


8,469 


27tV 


1845 


Increase in five 
years 16 per cent. 


371,223 


9,652 


26 


1855 


Increase in ten 
years 59 per cent. 


629,810 


24,448 


335 Including two 

epidemics of cholera, 9,000 
killed. 


1865 


Increase in ten 
years 10-53 per ct. 


726,354 


25,767 


35 ,\ 



The accuracy or inaccuracy of the census returns need not he men- 
tioned here. But we cannot fail to note the marked increase in the 
death-rate, year by year, for nearly twenty years past. This general 
increase of mortality must not be assumed to indicate a decrease in the 
expectation and length of life in the more favored classes of the popula- 
tion. There is reason to believe that all this increase of the death-rate 
is caused in particular classes of inhabitants. It is found to be mainly 
in those classes from which the paupers are derived, viz. : the ignorant 
and poor classes. Methods of classification, and analysis of causes of 
death at the various periods of life, are now so employed in the Bureau 
as to set forth, after a year or two, the actual conditions under which 
occur all the great excesses of mortality in the different clnsses and 
occupations, and at the several periods of life. Already we know that, 
as regards periods of life, the excess of mortality is in children under 
five years of age. Ti.e chances of life after that early period, are as good 
in New York as in -most maritime cities. 



APPENDIX. '77 

London, Paris, and Liverpool are the chief great capitals with which 
the inci'ease and movement of population, the physical influences of com- 
merce and the trades, and the rates of mortality in New York can be 
justly compared; yet none of those cities feels so greatly the influence 
oi a. foreign and unacclimated element in the population. 

In London, with a population, now, of 3,067,000 and upwards upon 
121 square miles, the death-rate, for twelve or fourteen years, has not 
varied much from 23| per 1,000 nnnually. In Paris the death-rate is, 
year by year, about 1 in the 1,000 higher than that of London. 

Liverpool last year had a death-rate of 36| per 1,000 inhabitants. 

The city of Dublin, last year, had a death-rate of 28 per 1,000. 

In the thirteen chief cities of Great Britain, the average rate is a 
little more than 24 per 1,000 annually. England and Wales suffier 
yearly a loss of 22i lives to every 1,000 inhabitants. 

Austria, in 1853, buried 34| out of every 1,000 ; in 1858, 31|; and 
in 1863 31^V *» the 1,000 of her population. 

France, in the same years, lost only 22, 24^, and 224 to the 1,000 
respectively. 

Most of the countries of Europe have, for years, been increasing 
their population at the rate of about 1 per cent, per annum. The most 
rapidly growing capitals have increased at a much more rapid rate, but 
even London has less than half the average rate of population growth 
which New York has. 

The standards of life-endurance in Europe are not high standards, 
though in cities they have risen to nearly double the length of European 
city lives two hundred years ago. Even in the notorious Parish of St. 
Giles, in London, a district has been so renovated the past ten years 
that the chanc s of life have more than doubled. 

New York should have its own standard, and, with its healthful 
climate, and great advantages, the motto of its sanitary government 
should be Excelsioe. 

In the Fifteenth "Ward of this ci^y, with a dense and well-mixed 
population, the present standard of life, in that ward, has, for sis years, 
averaged nearly twice as high as the average of the city. The mean 
death-rate in the ward has been but 17 per 1,000. And in this epi- 
demic year, life has been more secure in that ward than ever before, 
the death-rate having thus far been as 16 per 1,000 annually. 

Let me express the belief that, unless sanitary science and social im- 
provements are delusions, New York will, at some future day, contain 
a population of 2,000,000, and the metropolitan district 4,000,000, with 
a death-rate not exceeding 16 per 1,000 annually, — but half the present 
rate! 

Our war has demonstrated the wonderful endurance and vitality of 



IS 



APPENDIX. 



the American man. The metropolis of our country can yet present 
the healthiest of all the crowded populations ; for all the resources of 
sanitary science and medicine have become tributary to social progress 
in the civilization and Christianity of our day. 

"With highest regard, I remain, very truly yours, 

E. HARRIS. 
Bureau of Records and Vital Statistics ) 
Metropolitan Board of Health, Novemler 19<A, 1866. ) 

mortality of the city of new YORK IN 1864 AND 1865. 



Total ... 
Males. . . 
Females. 

Men 

Women. 
Adults. . 
Children . 



under 1 year. 



25,645 

13,662 

11,983 

5,959 

5,114 

11,073 

14,572 

6,058 



1865. 



24,843 

13,335 

11,508 

5,433 

4,606 

10,039 

14,804 

6,217 







Decrease. 


...802 


" 


...327 


(1 


. .445 


>( 


. .526 


u 


..508 


11 


.1,034 


Increase. 


...232 


u 


...159 



Ratio to 1,000 living in 1864, 23.7 ; in 1863, 25.1 ; decrease, 1.4. 

These returns indicate the city to have been entirely free from any 
epidemic or even endemic, and the general health to have been 
unusually good. 

A Table, showing the total Deaths from 1850 to 1866, also the numher 
(>/" Adults, Children, a»<^ Children under one year of age who died 
in the same period. 



Year. 



1851 

1852. 

1853. 

1854. 

1855. 

1856. 

1857. 

1858. 

1859. 

1860. 

1861. 

1862. 

1863. 

1864. 

1865. 



Deaths. 

21,748 
20,296 
21,137 
26,953 
21,478 
20,102 
21,775 
22,196 
21,645 
22,710 
22,117 
21,244 
25,196 
25,645 
24,843 



Adults. 

"7,77? 

8.002 

8,124 

10,681 

7,289 

6,769 

7,558 

8,081 

8,182 

8,752 

8,503 

8,618 

10,596 

11,073 

10,039 



Children. 

13,973 
12,294 
13,003 
16,271 
14,189 
14,889 
14,217 
14,105 
13,463 
13,958 
13,614 
12,626 
14,600 
14,572 
14,804 



Children 
under 1 year. 



6,891 
6,351 
6,661 
7,551 
6,771 
6,437 
6,905 
7,109 
6,599 
6,087 
6,189 
5,720 
6,118 
6,058 
6.217 



APPENDIX. 



.T9 



CHOLEEA MORTALITY DUEING SIX TEAES. 



Year. 


January. 


February. 


March. 


April. 


May. 


June. 


Total 
for six 
montlis. 


1861 

1862 

1863 

1864 

1865 

1866 


22 
18 
49 
51 
41 
55 


21 
22 
27 
36 
46 
33 


15 
34 
23 
38 
37 
45 


23 
26 
36 
58 
40 
90 


29 

32 
60 
54 
45 
84 


66 

68 

69 

111 

141 

196 


176 
199 
267 
348 
350 
598 


Total.. 


236 


190 


195 


272 


304 


651 


1,848 



The number of deaths in the Cholera Hospitals is stated to have 

been : ., ^o 

In the Battery Hospital ^^^ 

In the Eed House Hospital ^^ 



Total. 



,141 



DEATHS IN THE CITY BY WAED8. 

The following table shows the number of deaths from cholera 
in this city, by wards, from May 1 to December 1, 1866, inclusive, 
showing the rate of those deaths to the 10,000 inhabitants living: 



First 

Second 

Third 

Fourth 

Fifth 

Sixth 

Seventh 

Eighth 

Ninth 

Tenth 

Eleventh 

Twelfth 

Thirteenth 

Fourteenth 

Fifteenth 

Bixleenth 

Seventeenth 

Eighteenth 

Nineteenth 

Twentieth 

Twenty-first.... 
Twenty-second . 



Total 458 



14 

2 

1 
25 
12 
90 
18 
19 
12 
13 
13 
25 
10 
28 

3 

14 
22 
10 
20 
33 



9,852 
1,194 
3,367 
17,352 
18,205 
19.754 
36,962 
30,098 
38,504 
31,537 
58.953 
28,259 
26,388 
23,382 
25,572 
41,972 
79,563 
47,613 
39,945 
61,884 
38,669 
47,361 

726,386 



14 

16| 
2| 

14i 
6i 

45i 
4J 
6i 
3 
4 



3| 

llf 

1 

3i 

2| 

2 

5 

H 

•1 
234 



41,010 

9,950 

22,447 

133,477 

69,904 

151,954 

119,232 

103,786 

77,004 

185,512 

196,510 

5,195 

155,224 

155,880 

82,490 

69,953 

153,656 

51,197 

16,713 

91,006 

52,255 

21,334 

43,364 



37 
2 
2 
38 
18 
125 
22 
22 
14 
14 
13 
39 
10 
37 
4 
15 
24 
11 
25 
35 



37i 
16f 

29^ 
9^ 
631 

^4 
3^ 

13| 

15| 

3 

2^ 
61 

8? 
2 
16 

8Jjr 



80 



APPENDIX. 



JDNE, JnLT, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER. 

Of the 342 persons who died from cholera, in the months of June, 
July, August, and September, there were born in Ireland, 190; United 
States, 73 ; Germany, 36 ; England, 21 ; Scotland, 5 ; France, 4 ; Swe- 
den, 3 ; Canada, 2 ; China, 1 ; Italy, 1 ; Australia, 1 ; at sea, 1 ; not 
stated, 2. 

The ages at which these 342 persons died were as follows : 



Years. 


Number of 
persons. 


Years. 


Number of 
persons. 


10 to 15 


3 
13 
39 

47 
50 
37 
41 


45 to 50 


32 


15 to 20 


50 to 55 


25 


20 to 25 


55 to 60 


24 


25 to 30 


60 to 65 


16 


30 to 35 


65 to 70 

75 tu -) 

80 to 85 


1" 


35 to 40 


2 


40 to 45 


1 









OCCUPATION OF THE DEAD, 

Among the persons who died in the four months last alluded to, 
88 are returned as "laborers," 65 as "domestics," 16 as "house- 
keepers," &c. 

CHOLERA DEATHS IN THE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 

The following statement gives the number of deaths from cholera in 
the public institutions of New York from July 7 to December 1, 1866: 

Ward's Island, 172 ; Workhouse, Blackwell's Island, 151 ; Alms- 
house, Blackwell's Island, 95 ; Charity Hospital, Blackwell's Island, 41 ; 
New York City Lunatic Asylum, Blackwell's Island, 74 ; Penitentiary, 
Blackwell's Island, 6 ; Randall's Island, 20 ; Bellevue Hospital, 33 ; 
New York Hospital, 3; City Prison, 2; Castle Garden, 3; Fort Colum- 
bus, New York Hospital, 2 ; Small-pox Hospital, Blackwell's Island, 2 ; 
Colored Home, 1 ; Nursery and Child's Hospital, 8 ; Battery Hospital, 
107 ; Red House Hospital, 32. Total, 752. 



CHOLERA GROUPS. 

From the list of streets in which fatal cholera cases occurred, we 
extract all numbering over five, as follows: 

Baxter Street, 35 ; Broadway, 9 ; Cherry Street, 8 ; Franklin Street, 
6; Greenwich Street, 10; Mott Street, 15; Mulberry Street, 67; 
Ninth Avenue, 7 ; Third Avenue, 10 ; Thomas Street, 6 ; Washington 
Street, 17; Water Street, 6; West Twenty-sixth Street, 9; West Forty- 
first Street, 7 ; West Fifty-fourth Street, 7 ; West Sixty-seventh Street, 6. 



APPENDIX. 81 

The total number of houses in which the deaths occurred at home 
and in the cholera hospital, was 440. 

The number of houses in which only one death occurred, was 362. 

The number of houses in which two deaths occurred, was 61. 

The number of houses in which three deaths occurred, was 16. 

The number of houses in which four or more deaths occurred, 
was 10. 

SANITARY DEDTrCTION. 

The progressing demands and appliances of sanitary science went 
beyond such general and vague, though practical and just, conclusions. 
But it was not until the results of the more exactly defined experiences 
and researches in the epidemics of 1854, 1859 and 1865 in Europe had 
been logically analyzed and compared, that this most valuable of all 
conclusions was reached, namely : That the diarrhoeal excreta of the 
sick when impregnating the soil, the drinking water, or any kind of 
decomposing matter, especially that of privies, cesspools, sewers, drains, 
and the ground about dwelling liouses, constitute the positive, the 
cbief, and, for aught that is yet known, the only means for propagating 
and spreading Asiatic cholera. 



BOARD OF HEALTH. 

December 4^A, 1864. 

Deae Sir : Enclosed I send you an extract from the forthcoming re- 
port ofthe Board of Health, which will give some idea of the kind and 
amount of detailed labor which it has performed in the eight months 
since its organization. Yet, without far greater space than you can 
afford, you can give but a meagre idea of its great and varied labors 
and influences. 

The extent to which it has coerced and stimulated the public 
schools and other institutional authorities of the district, to regard 
sanitary laws ; the efficient manner in which it has compelled offal and 
garbage contractors to discharge their duties; the powerful stimulant it 
has been to landlords to put their buildings in better order for poor 
tenants ; the suppression of cattle-driving in the day-time in this city ; 
the great controlment of the slaughtering of animals in New York ; 
the important fact that it has caused somo of the lar^^est abatt > rs to 
be built in the open country, some miles distant; the better cire it 
has caused to be taken to prevent the spread of typhoid and ship 
fever ; above all, its effectual and energetic treatment of cholera ; the 
noble exhausting and self-sacrificing labors of the commissions, during 
the hot summer months, worth s > much as a public example, are 
not alluded to in the extract, nor, I think, have you any space for 
them. 

6 



82 



APPENDIX. 



Considering the embarras«ments the Board has had to encounter, 
the suddenness with which the cholera came, the work done, I thinlc 
its full record in its report will be one of which New York may be 
proud. Yours, very truly, D. B. Eaton. 

The first orders of the Board were issued on the 14th of March, 
between which date and the 1st of November, 31,077 orders were is- 
sued, and were duly served by the Sanitary Police. Of these orders, 
5,325 were under the first subdivision of Section 14, of Chapter 74, of 
the Session Laws of 1866, by the terms of which the party served is 
allowed three days in which to demand a " Jiearing " by the Board of 
the testimony which may be presented to show that the order should be 
revoked and not enforced. In cases where no hearing has been asked 
for, and the order has not been obeyed by the proper party, '•'■final'''' 
orders in the original or an amended form, to the number of 3,160, have 
been issued and forwarded to the Board of Metropolitan Police for 
execution. All other written orders, in number 22,592, have been is- 
sued under the second subdivision of Section 14, of Chapter 74, of the 
Session Laws of 1866, and are of a peremptory character, requiring that 
the nuisance be abated within five days, and, if not obeyed, directing 
the Board of Metropolitan Police to enforce the same without further 
notice. The following is a statement of the subjects of the orders above 
referred to, other than the "^ra«Z" orders, and of the work performed 
in the execution of the same, either by the party upon whom the order 
was served, or by the Metropolitan Board of Police, or by the oflBcers 
or agents of this Board, 

"We select the principal items of the work done by the Board from 
the full list of 180 classes of work : 



Alleys cleaned 

Ashes, garbage, and rubbish 

removed 

Areas cleaned 

Basements cleaned 

" whitewashed. . . 
Bone and oflfal boiling (busi- 
ness of) discontinued 

Cellars cleaned 

" connected with sew- 
er 

" filled 

" whitewashed 

Cesspools cleaned 

" connected with 

sewer 

" disinfected 

" emptied 

«' filled 



381 

1,335 

701 

230 

66 

12 
3,067 

62 
182 
653 



45 

66 

25 

111 



Cesspools made 

" repaired 

Cisterns cleaned and emp- 
tied 

" disinfected 

filled 

" repaired 

Cows removed (No. of or- 
ders) 

Ditches cut 

Drains cleaned 

" made 

" Cobstructions in) re- 
moved 

" repaired 

Fat boiling (business of) dis- 
continued 

Halls cleaned 

" whitewashed 



131 

28 

771 
76 

328 
38 

110 
49 
38 

136 

99 

138 

54 
260 
161 



APPENDIX. 



83 



Hide curing and storing (bu- 
siness of) discontinued.., 15 

Hydrants repaired 159 

Hydrant-waste drained, &c, 209 

Leaders repaired 254 

Lime burning (business of) 

discontinued 6 

Lots cleaned 479 

" filled 143 

" graded 57 

Manure removed 991 

" vaults cleaned 22 

" " constructed.. 492 
" " (covers for) 

made 38 

" " repaired 53 

Market stalls removed 128 

Offal boiling (business of) 

discontinued 1 

Oil manufacturing (business 

of) discontinued 1 

Packing rancid butter (busi- 
ness of) discontinued 1 

Pickles manufacturing (bu- 
siness of) discontinued. . . 2 

Piers cleaned 80 

" repaired 18 

Pigs' feet and tripe boiling 

(business of) discontinued 2 

Pig-pens cleaned 299 

Pigs removed (No, of orders) 381 
Pipe (water, waste, and 
hydrant) obstructions re- 
moved 46 

Pipes (waste) cleaned 149 

" " repaired 427 

" (water) " 248 

Plastering removed and 

walls re-plastered 47 

Ponds filled 42 

Premises cleaned 2,581 

" disinfected and fu- 
migated ] 94 

•' connected with the 

sewer 521 

" whitewashed 871 

Privies disinfected 6,418 

" emptied and cleaned 15,214 

Privy houses removed 31 

" " repaired 195 

" seats repaired 44 

" sinks connected with 

sewer 2,056 



Privy sinks filled 577 

" " made 2,085 

" vaults repaired 442 

Privies built 4 

Eags removed 78 

Rag sorting and cleaning 

(business of) discontinued 6 
Sausage case and gut clean- 
ing (business of) discon- 
tinued 13 

Sausage and tripe manufac- 
turing (business of) dis- 
continued 11 

Sewers built 28 

" cleaned 157 

Sewer connections cleaned . 136 

Sewers repaired 338 

Sewer pipes (obstructions in) 

removed 1,493 

Sewer pipes repaired 505 

Sidewalks repaired 130 

Sinks emptied and cleaned. . 2,625 
Slaughtering (business of) 

discontinued 36 

Slaughter houses cleaned. . . 20 
Soap boiling (business of) 

discontinued 5 

Spaces (vacant) cleaned 162 

" disinfected 11 

Stables cleaned 657 

" disinfected 6 

Stagnant water removed. . . 354 

Stairways cleaned 68 

" repaired 30 

Streets cleaned 17 

" (obstructions in) re- 
moved 78 

Superphosphate lime man- 
ufacturing (business of) 

discontinued 4 

Swill boiling (business of) 

discontinued 7 

Tanks constructed 24 

Varnish manufacturing (bu- 
siness of) discontinued.. , . 3 

Vaults cleaned 95 

Walls and ceilings repaired. 18 

Water closets cleaned 413 

" " repaired 66 

" " and urinals 

constructed 45 

Yards cleaned 3,949 

" graded and repaired. 245 



84 



APPENDIX. 



III. CRIME IN NEW YORK. 



Nativity of those arrested^ 


classified for the year ending Oct. Slst^ 


1865. 


Nativity. 


Num. 


Nativity. 


Num. 




21,852 

1,184 

32,867 

7,162 

2,819 

639 

901 

57 

24 

87 

18 

409 

25 

189 

43 

139 

61 

11 

29 

11 

40 




86 






31 




Hungarj' 


13 






46 






4 






3 


Scotland 




2 






44 








13 






5 




Cuba 


35 






12 


Holland 




1 




China 


7 






1 






1 






1 




Sicily . . .. 


1 










68,873 


Swi tzerland 





Recapitulation of Offences against the Person for the year ending Oc- 
tober 31s<, 1865. 



Offences against person. 

j^ssault 

Assault and Battery 

Assault -with intent 
to kill 

Assault, felonious. . . 

Assault on police- 
men 

Abandonment 

Accessory to murder 

Aiding prisoner to 
escape 

Attempt at rape. . . 

Abduction 

Abortion 

Attachment o 

bench warrant. . . 

Bastardy 

Bigamy 

Contempt of Court 

Carrying concealed 
weapons 

Disorderly conduct 

Deserters 

Escaped convicts,. 

Fighting in streets. 

Fugitives from jus- 
tice 

Habituril drunkards 

Homicides in all de- 
grees 



Males. 


Pern's. 


Total. 


106 


14 


120 


6,077 


1,667 


7,744 


197 


1 


198 


546 


54 


600 


36 




36 


253 


5 


258 


9 




9 


5 


1 


6 


40 


.... 


40 


3 


.... 


3 


2 


2 


4 


100 


40 


140 


141 


... • 


141 


14 


5 


19 


23 


6 


29 


58 


1 


59 


8,542 


5,412 


13,050 


254' 


.... 


254 


95 


4 


99 


613 


94 


767 


5 


1 


6 


52 


139 


191 


65 


4 


69 



Otfences against person 

Insanity 

Interfering with po- 
licemen 

Insulting females in 
the streets 

Indecent exposure of 
the person 

Intoxication 

Intoxication and dis- 
orderly conduct. . . 

Juvenile delinquents 

Kidnapping 

Libel 

Miscellaneous mis 
demeanors 

Maiming 

Personating polue- 
men 

Runaway appre.iti- 
ces 

Rescuing prisoners. 

Rape 

Suspicious porsons. . 

Seduction 

Sodomy 

Threatening life ... . 

Trespassing 

Truancy 

Vagrancy 

Witnesses 



Males. 


Fern's. 


304 


184 


178 


14 


18 




116 


3 


11,482 


4,936 


4,866 


2,445 


154 


25 


20 


5 


5 




80 


34 


14 




16 






12 


10 




18 


2 


38 


• • • • 


1,617 


440 


21 


.• • . 


5 


.... 


88. 


8 


9 




188 


18 


978 


838 


28 


8 



488 

192 

18 

119 
16,418 

7,311 
179 
35 

5 

114 
14 

16 
22 

20 

38 

2,057 

21 

5 

98 

9 

206 

1,816 

36 



Offences against (he person 37,489 16,422 53,911 



APPENDIX. 



85 



Eecapiiulation of Offences against Property for the year ending Oc- 
tober 2,\st, 1865. 



Arson 

Attempt to steal.... 
Attempt at burglary 

Burglary 

Constructive larceny 

Conspiracy 

Compounding felo- 

"y 

Embezzlement 

Forgery 

Frau.i 

Forfeited Ixiil 

Felony 

Grand larceny 

Gambling 

Highway Eobbery.. 

Horse stealing 

Keeping disorderly 

house 

Larceny upon the 

person 

Mutiny 

Malicious mischief. . 



Oflfences against property . . . . 

Offences against the person . . 

Total number of arrests. 



Males. 


Fern's. 


Total. 


35 




85 


236 


9 


245 


53 




53 


291 


3 


294 


43 


12 


55 


6 


.... 


6 


2 




2 


42 




42 


151 


3 


154 


104 


17 


121 


7 


.... 


7 


2 





2 


1,675 


946 


2,621 


249 


3 


252 


199 


6 


205 


6 


.... 


6 


177 


165 


342 


102 


.35 


127 


52 




52 


436 


48 


484 



Obtaining goods by 
false pretences.... 

Offences against the 
Government 

Picking pockets 

Petit larceny 

Perjury 

Passing counterfeit 
money 

Receiv'g stolen g'ds 

Robbery,flrst degree 

Rioting 

Smuggling 

Shoplifting 

Swindling 

Violations of corpo- 
ration ordinances. 

Violations of the 
Sunday law 

Violations of the 
election law 

Violations of the 
State law... 



Males. 


Fern's. 


108 


23 


122 


2 


255 


20 


3,380 


1.860 


14 


.... 


414 


46 


166 


51 


109 


6 


10 




5 




5 


3 


104 


3 


2,417 


415 


183 


20 


30 


.... 


75 


1 



131 

124 

275 

5,240 

14 

460 
217 
115 
10 
S 
8 
107 

2,832 

203 

30 

76 



.11,265 3,697 14,962 
.37,489 16,422 53,911 
.48,754 20,119 68,873 



HOUSE OF REFUGE. 

The last report states that the whole number of children received 
into the House ot Eefuge since its opening in 1825, is 10,853. 

That the number of children in the House on the 1st day of Jan- 
uary, 1865, was 718 

That there have been received during the year 1865 824 

Making a total of 1,542 

That there have been indentured and discharged during the year.. 603 

And there remain in the House on the 1st of January, 1866 939 

The Superintendent's statement thereto annexed contains all the par- 
ticulars required by the act referred to, as to the sources from which 
the inmates of the House have been received, and the disposition that 
has been made of them, as well as many other facts and statistics of 
interest in the history of the institution during the past year. 

The very large increase in the number of the children committed to 
the House, being nearly fifty per cent, on the number committed during 
1864, and about seventy-five per- cent, on the average of three years 
preceding, is a fact calculated to excite Inquiry. 



86 APPENDIX. 



IV. PUBLIC CHAEITIES AND CORKECTION. 



SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF PUBLIC 
CHARITIES AND CORRECTION FOR THE YEAR 1865. 

BOAED OF COMMISSIONEES OF PUBLIC CHAEITIES AND COEEECTION. 

Isaac Bell, President^ James B. Nicholson, 

James Bowen, Owen "W. Brennan. 

The Institutions in charge of the Commissioners are the 

City Prison in the City of New York, 
Bellevue Hospital " " 

Small Pox and Fever Hospitals, Blackwell's Island, 
Island Hospital, " " 

Penitentiary, " " 

Alms Houses, " " 

Work House, " " 

Lunatic Asylum, " " 

Children's Nurseries, Randall's Island, 
City Cemetery and Farm, Ward's Island. 

The Colored Home and Colored Orphan Asylum in the city of New 
York are under the supervision of the Commissioners, though in direct 
charge of their respective Boards of Managers. 

Detailed statements of the expenses for maintaining the several insti- 
tutions will be found in the tables accompanying this report, but they 
may be generally classified as follows: 

Provisions $314,186 29 

Clothing, Beds, and Bedding 63,148 20 

Medicines 38,055 07 

CoalandWood 105,031 77 

Erection of New Buildings 39,868 72 

Repairs— Buildings 6,082 16 

Salaries 139,073 81 

Steamboat 29,809 38 

Donations to Out-Door Poor 32,438 75 

Colored Orphan Asylum and Nursing Children. . . 20,712 62 
Furniture 6,307 08 



APPENDIX. 



87 



Hardware, Steam and Gas Fixtures $15,198 69 

Rents 7,549 79 

Lumber and Mason Work 14,102 99 

Plumbing, Paints, etc 5,292 86 

Leather and Shoes 10,670 81 

Soap 8,882 28 

Stationery, Printing, and Advertising 10,646 77 

Transportation of Prisoners and Paupers 7,140 58 

Miscellaneous 68,134 80 

$942,243 42 

CITY PRISONS. 

The total number of prisoners who were committed to the city 
prisons during the past year was thirty-nine thousand six hundred and 
sixteen (39,616), being an increase over the previous year of eight 
tTiousand three hundred and eighty- three (8,383). The increase has 
been principally among the prisoners who were charged with high 
crimes. 



NATIVITY OF THE PRISONERS COMMITTED DURING THB 
TEAR 1865. 


MALES. 


FEMALES. 


TOTAL. 


Ireland 


10,638 

8,111 

3,195 

1,076 

369 

220 

268 

113 

49 

49 

42 

29 

29 

24 

24 

22 

20 

14 

14 

8 

6 

6 

3 


8,998 

4,199 

1,210 

560 

171 

99 

35 

6 

i 

'I 
1 
2 

"i 


19,636 
12 310 


United States 


Germany 


4,405 
1 636 


England 


Scotland 


540 


Canada 


319 


Fran ce 


303 


Italy 


119 


Prussia 


49 


Poland 


49 


Sweden 


42 


Switzerland 


30 


Denmark 


29 


"Wales 


28 


Cuba, r 


25 


Spain, 


24 


Austria 


20 


Russia 


15 


Norwav 


14 


Portngal 


s 


China , 


6 


Greece 


A 


Mexico 


3 






Total 


24,329 


15,287 


39,616 





88 



APPENDIX. 



BELLEVUE HOSPITAL. 

The number of Patients remaining in Hospital, January 1st, 1865, 648 
The number of admissions for the year (including 590 births) 

were 6,425 

The total number of patients treated during the year 7,073 

The number discharged, cured, and relieved for the year were.. . .5,801 
The number of deaths for the year were 658 



6,459 



The number of Patients remaining in Hospital under treatment, 

December 31st, 1865 614 



NATIVITY OF THOSE ADMITTED, 

INCLUDING BIRTHS. 



United States 

Ireland 

England 

Scotland 

Germany 

France 

Canada 

Wales 

Belgium 

Italy 

Prussia 

Spain 

At Sea 

Unknown Countries. 
Other Countries . . . . 

Total : ... 











BIRTHS. 


55 

S 










J 

o 


« 

3 


676 


601 2 


1 


] 


L5 297 


293 


1,603 


1,844 












147 


126 












61 


43 












323 


148 












41 


11 












40 


24 












2 


2 












3 


1 












5 


• • • 












6 


1 












3 














1 


• , , 












15 


3 












51 


18 












2,977 


2,822 2 


1 


] 


L5 29 


7 


293 



1,903 

3,447 

273 

104 

471 

52 

64 

4 

4 

5 

7 

3 

1 

18 

69 

6,425 



APPENDIX. 



89 



ISLAND, FEVER, AND SMALL POX HOSPITALS. 

During the year both Hospitals have been over-crowded with pa- 
tients, and the experience of the past will justify your Board in 
making farther provision for the care of Small Pox and Typhus Fever 
patients. 

The Island Hospital, with its pavilion and tents, has received during 
the year 8,893 patients, the whole number treated in the same period 
being 9,877. 

In February the number of fever cases under treatment at one time 
was 155 ; the whole number treated during the year was 1,330. A 
large item in the expenses of Island Hospital was caused by the erection 
of the building and maintenance of these fever patients. 

There has been received and treated in Small Pox Hospital 1,116 
patients, an increase of 397 over the number treated during 1864. 

Of this number, 358 were emigrants, 48 United States soldiers, and 
620 residents of New York city. 



PENITENTIARY. 

The health of the prisoners generally, for the past year, has been 
very good. The number of convicts is large compared with last year. 
On December, 1864, there were 280, and at the close of 1865, 596. 



The following Table shows the Crimes committed iy the Male and Fe- 
male Convicts received from 1st of January to 31st December, 1865, 
inclusive : 



Assault 

Assault and Battery 

Assault with intent to steal. . 

Disorderly House 

Grand Larceny 

Grand Larceny, attempt at. . 
Indecent Assault and Battery 
Indecent Exposure of Person 
Manslaughter, fourth degree. 

Petit Larceny 

Forgery, fourth degree 

Forgery, third degree 

Illegal Voting 

Total 



MALES. FEMALES. TOTAL, 



1,096 



40 




40 


215 


166 


381 


196 


23 


219 


18 


■5 


23 


82 


52 


134 


105 


68 


173 


15 


, , 


15 


13 




13 


2 




2 


398 


260 


658 


3 




3 


1 




1 


8 




8 



574 I 1,670 



90 



APPENDIX. 



The following Table shows the Natimties of the Male and Female Con- 
flicts received from Ist January to Z\st December^ 1865, inclusive : 



NATIVITIES. 


MALES. 


FEMALES. 


TOTAL. 


United States 


235 

193 

355 

31 

35 

38 

35 

159 

15 


135 

71 

240 

16 

14 

5 

2 

91 


370 




264 


Ireland ......•• •.... 


595 


Scotlan d 


47 


Canada 


49 


France 


43 


Prussia 


37 


Germany 


250 


Spain 


15 






Total 


1,096 


574 


1,670 







WORK HOUSE. 



Census for the Year. 





B 

•J 
■< 


Ed 


■J 
t 


Number on hand December 31st,. 1864 




217 
4,100 


1,016 
7,013 


1,233 


Number received during the y( 


;ar 




11,113 






Total 


4,317 

3,917 

400 
97 


8,029 

7,170 

859 
390 


12,346 










MALES. 


FEMALES. 




Number discharged 


3,691 
187 
89 


6,835 1 
295 I 
40. 




Number eloped from this and 
otlier Institutions 


11,087 


Number died at this and other 
Institutions 


Number remaining on Register 

And of this number there are ti 

departments, at work, sick, < 

Leaving in building 




1,259 


"ansferred to other 
JtC 


487 










303 


469 


772 



The daily average number of inmates for the year was 772§||, 
showing a decrease of IHIbj since the previous year. 



APPENDIX. 



91 



ALMS HOUSE. 

The following is a comparative Statement of Admissions during the last 

ten years. 



There were admitted in 1856 

" " 1857 

" » 1858 

" " 1859 

" " 1860 

" " 1861 

" " 1862 

" " 1863 

" " 1864 

" " 1865 



NATIVES. 


FOEEIGNBES. 


TOTAL. 


723 


2,636 


3,359 


875 


3,329 


4,204 


794 


3,096 


3,890 


718 


3,013 


3,731 


985 


3,144 


4,129 


1,537 


3,255 


4,792 


1,199 


1,992 


3,191 


1,201 


1,642 


2,843 


1,262 


1,891 


3,153 


1,378 


2,212 


3,590 



CHILDREN'S NURSERIES, RANDALL'S ISLAND. 





ADULTS. 


OHILDREN. 


TOTAL. 


Remaining December 31st, 1864, 

Admitted 1865 


156 
143 


823 
1,544 


979 
1,687 








299 
122 


2,367 
1,463 


2,666 
1,585 








177 


904 

8 


1,081 
8 






Died - 


177 

4 


896 
113 


1,073 
117 






Remaining December 31st, 1865 


• 173 


783 


956 



Boys 
Girls 



OHILDEKN TAKEN FOB INDENTUEE. 



.160 

. 97 



257 



Boys , 
Girls 



OHILDEEK EETUENED TO EELATIVES. 



.775 
.431 



1,206 



1,463 



92 APPENDIX. 

NURSEEY HOSPITAL. 

Number of patients remaining January Ist, 1865 164 

" " admitted during the year ] ,582 

" " treated " " 1,746 

" " discharged" " 1,421 

" " died " " 113 

" " remaining January 1st, 1866 212 

Included in the above summary of deaths are seventeen idiots, who 
were treated and who died in the Asylum. The whole number of 
deaths in the Hospital during the year is 96. 

The percentage of mortality on the number treated is 5 j^^. The 
average weekly census has been 212||. 



COLORED ORPHAN ASYLUM. 

STATISTICS. 

Admitted since the opening of the Institution 1,384 

Number of children at date of last report 209 

Admitted : boys 39 

girls 35 

74 

283 

Present number of boys 119 

" " girls 103 

222 

Indentured 34 

Returned to friends 10 

Sent to Rhode Island to school, by Mrs. Stokes 2 

Left without permission 1 

Sent to the House of Refuge 3 

Deaths • 11 

283 

COLORED HOME. 

There have been received during the year (including those on hand 
at last report) 516 inmates, of which number 299 have been discharged, 
or have died, leaving at present 217 in the Institution. 



APPEKDIX. 



93 



LUNATIC ASYLUM. 

The number of patients at the beginning of the year was 759. 
There were admitted during the year 525, making a total of 1,284. Of 
these, 127, or ten per cent., died, and 421 were discharged, leaving 736 
at present in the Asylum. 

Of those discharged, 142 were unimproved, 83 were improved, 192 
had fully recovered, and 4 were improper suljects. 

Of those admitted, 37 had attempted suicide previous to admission. 
Of these attempts, 11 had been by jumping from heights, 8 by drown- 
ing, 9 by cutting and stabbing, and the remainder by other means, A 
number of others were supposed to have suicidal propensities, although 
no attempt was known to have been made. Only two serious attempts 
at suicide were made at the Asylum — one by hanging and one by 
drowning. These occurred in cases shortly after admission, and were, 
unfortunately, both successful. 

Of those admitted, 133 were native-born, and 362 were foreign. Of 
the foreign-born, 235 were from Ireland, 95 from Germany, 28 from 
England, and the rest from other countries : 280 Catholics, 224 Prot- 
estants, and 21 Jews. 

OUT-DOOR POOR. 

SUPERINTENDENT OF OUT-DOOK POOR. 

New York, December 31st, 1865. 
To the Commissioners of Ptiblic Charities and Correction: 

Gentlemen: — The Superintendent of Out-Door Poor respectfully 
presents the accompanying statistics for the year ending December 3l8t, 
1865, and by which it will appear that 3,743 adults and 7,462 children 
have been relieved by donations in money, and 15,481 adults and 25,572 
children with fuel. 

The total amount of cash disbursed by me for all purposes of the De- 
partment from 1st January to 31st December, 1865, was $102,783 24. 
A comparison with the years 1863 and 1864 is herewith presented : 



Donations, including Twelfth, Nineteenth, and 
Twenty-second Wards 

Children's Nursing 

Transportation of Paupers and Children 

Salaries 

Coal, and Wood, and Cartage for 1865, including 
Twelfth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-second Wards.. 

Expenses of Office, extra compensation, 1865, $1,975 ; 
Btables, feed, horses, stationery, fuel, coffins, etc . . 

Less cash receipts 



1863. 1864. 1865. 



f33,073 00 
3,160 35 
2,269 15 
11,885 82 

26,375 91 

9,049 57 



$84,813 80 
2,902 25 

$82,911 15 



$39,957 97 
8,458 00 
2,198 17 
12,082 72 

38,834 18 

3,592 43 



,$100,123 47 
3,155 00 

$96,968.47 



$32,438 75 

3,659 75 

1,583 65 

12,538 63 

41,709 23 

10,853 23 



$102,783 24 
4,059 00 



$98,724 24 



94 



APPENDIX. 



V. EDUCATION. 



Eeoapittilation' of theAverage Attendance and Whole Number Taught^ 
for the year ending December 31, 1865. 



Grammar Schools and Primary Departments. 

Primary Schools 

Colored Schools 

Kvening Schools 

Free Academy 

Normal School 



Total Ward, etc. Schools , 

New York Orphan Asylum 

Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum 

Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum 

House of Refuge 

Leake and Watts Orphan House 

Colored Orphan Asylum 

American Female Guardian Society and Home Industrial School. 

New York Juvenile Asylum 

House of Reception of " 

Ladies' Home Missionary Society 

Five Points House of Industry 

Children's Aid Society 



Total 91,857 219,749 



58.911 

15,255 

795 

11,487 

'"•226 



1,674 
158 
807 
186 
840 
142 
180 
794 
563 
129 
273 
327 
784 



140,629 
38,155 
■ 2,112 
24,056 
788 
569 



206,309 

183 

904 

200 

1.475 

164 

241 

2,941 

1,032 

839 

1,117 

1,664 

2,680 



Reoapittjlation of the Actual Average Attendance and Whole Number 
Taught by Wards, for the year ending the Z\st day of Decem- 
ber, 1865. 



First Ward 

Second Ward. . . 
Third "Ward.. . 
Fourth Ward... 
Fifth Ward.... 
Sixth Ward.... 
Seventh Ward.. 
EischthWard... 
Ninth Ward... 
Tenth Ward.... 
Eleventh Ward 
Twelfth Ward. 



a «* 


H U H 










62 






* ^ 


1,424 


3,228 


225 


473 


179 


336 


1,977 


5,282 


2,083 


4,641 


2,618 


6,367 


3,145 


8,062 


3,216 


7,462 


4,635 


10,929 


5,144 


12,485 


5,591 


13,448 


3,738 


9,966 



WARDS. 


% 


m 


Thirteenth Ward 


3,328 
2,461 
3,462 
4,724 
5,287 
3,4oS 
2,839 
6,114 
3,78.'5 
5,560 


8,458 


Fourteenth Ward 


6,220 

7,657 

10,055 


Fifteenth Ward 


Sixteenth Ward 


Seventeenth Ward 

Eighteenth Ward 

Nineteenth Ward 


13,587 
8.270 
7,501 


Twentieth Ward 


13 943 


Twenty-first Ward 

Twenty-second Ward 


9,032 
13,495 


Total 


74.961 


180,898 



APPENDIX. 



95 



EVENING SCHOOLS. 

Attendance and Whole Number Taught in the Evening Schools 
for the year ending the 2,\st day of December^ 1865. 



First 

Fourth 

Fifth 

Sixth 

Seventh 

Eighth 

Ninth 

Tenth 

Eleventh 

Twelfth, Harlem- 

" Yorkville 

" Manhattanville 

Thirteenth 

Fourteenth 

Sixteenth 

Seventeenth, Houston Street 

" Twelfth Street 

Eifthteenth 

Nineteenth 

Twentieth 

Twenty-first 

Twenty-second, Fortieth Street 

" Forty-fourth Street. 

" Forty-seventh Street 

Eighth, Colored 

Sixteenth, " 



MALE SCHOOLS. 



192 
164 
320 
236 
243 
339 
336 
377 
451 
110 
99 
93 
243 
311 
370 
464 
384 
361 
310 
390 
316 
222 
352 
254 
70 
72 

7,079 



FEMALE SCHOOLS. 



607 

349 

684 
595 
596 
753 

1,251 
895 

1,287 
287 
215 
269 
951 
746 
842 
894 
547 
926 
424 
907 
850 
571 
694 
565 
245 
157 

17,007 



199 

234 

173 

187 

127 

188 

201 

206 

354 
32 
55 
No Female 

194 

236 

225 

360 

232 

182 
98 

276 

27T 

197 
No Female 

175 



4,408 



360 
•435 
456 
224 
213 
363 
471 
356 
530 
65 
70 

School. 
195 
359 
275 
439 
316 
252 
141 
462 
433 
401 

School 
233 



7,049 



Average attendance — Male and Female Schools . 
Whole Number Taught " " " • > 

COEPORATE SCHOOLS. 



.11,487 
.24,057 



New York Orphan Asylum 

Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum- 
Male Department 

Female " 

Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum 

House of Refuge — 

Male Department 

Female " 

Leake and Watts Orphan House— 

Male Department 

Female " 

Colored Orphan Asylum 

American Female Guardian Society and Home Indus- 
trial School 

New York Juvenile Asylum 

House of Reception of " 

Ladies' Home Missionary Society 

Five Points House of Industry 

Children's Aid Society 



Total. 



494 


449 


502 


493 


358 


402 


60 


186 


200 


506 


673 


1,119 


506 


167 


366 


231 


74 


85 


468 


68 


79 


500 


180 


241 


459 


794 


2,041 


573 


563 


1,032 


514 


129 


839 


482 


273 


1,117 


512 


327 


1,664 


4,694 


784 


2,680 




5,183 


1 13,440 



96 



APPEKDIX. 



Average Attendance and Whole Number Taught, in detail, for the 
year ending the Zlst day of December, 1865. 



Ward Schools — Boys' Department 
Girls' 
" Primary " 

Primary Schools 

Colored Schools 

Evening Schools —Male 

" Female 

Free Academy 

Normal Schools 

Corporate Schools 

Total 



AVERAGE. 


WHOLE 
NUMBER. 


13,437 


29,469 


12,439 


26,306 


33,035 


84,854 


15,255 


38,155 


795 


2,112 


7,079 


17,007 


4,408 


7,049 




788 


226 


569 


5,183 


13,440 



91,857 



219,749 



STATE SCHOOL TAX. 

The table annexed shows the State School Tax levied in each year, 
during the last thirteen years, on the taxable property of the State, 
the amount collected in the city of New York, with the sum re-appor- 
tioned : 



TEARS. 


AGOREOATB STATE 
TAX FOR SCHOOLS. 


AMOUNT OF SCHOOL 

TAX PAID BY THE 
CITY TO THE STATE. 


AMOUNT OF SCHOOL 

TAX APPORTIONED TO 

NEW YORK CITY BY 

THE STATE. 


1853 


$800,000 00 

800,000 00 
800,000 00 
1,072,362 83 
1,073,768 97 
1,052,853 75 
1,053,873 04 
1,064,473 15 
1,064,473 15 
1,081,325 57 
1,087,562 90 
1,090,841 11 
1,125,749 90 


$241,553 19 
257,616 11 
271,639 40 
383,805 37 
390,403 96 
398,416 98 
399,677 61 
412,550 00 
412,550 00 
428,309 40 
412,218 23 
410,562 02 
432 000 12 


$130,701 05 


1854 


131,808 48 


1855 

1856 

1857 

1858 

1859 


132,711 68 
146.522 41 
202,905 90 
212,889 55 
207,332 95 


I860 


207,990 35 


1861 


212,768 99 


1862 


245,080 34 


1863 


250,616 99 


1864 


252,265 54 


1865 


260,896 82 






Total 


$13,147,284 37 


$4,851,307 09 


$2,594,491 05 







From the above statement it appears that the amount of 
State School Tax paid by this city, during the last 
twelve years, was $4,851,307 09 



APPENDIX. 



97 



The amount apportioned to this county by the State dur- 
ing the same period was, 2,594,491 05 

Amount retained by the State Government for distribu- 
tion in other counties 2,256,816 04 

COLORED SCHOOLS. 





T, 


a 


a < 




OOLOKED SCHOOLS. 


w 3 

B m 


"5 


LOCATION OF SCHOOLS. 




O 


^^ 






Colored School, No. 1— 










Boys' Department 


400 


84 


204 


; 14th Ward, 135 Mulberry street, between 
S Grand and Hester streets. 


Girls' " 


400 


99 


277 


Colored School No. 2— 










Boys' Department. . 
Girls' " 


431 

432 


51 

78 


107 
190 


) 8th Ward, 51 and 53 Laurens street, 


Primary " 


431 


124 


370 


j near Broome. 


Colored School No. 4 


425 


13 


37 


12th Ward, 120th street near 4tli av. ' 


Colored School No. 5 


432 


60 


159 


5th Ward, 147 Franklin street. 


Colored School No. 6 


434 


118 


341 


20th "Ward, 1325 Broadway. 


Colored School No. 7 


432 


128 


327 


16th Ward, 98 West 17th street. 


Colored Primary School ) 
Nos. 2and3 \ 


432 


40 


100 


11th Ward, 2d street, near Avenue C. 




T95 


2,112 





THE CENTRAL PARK. 

The Park has cost, up to December 31st, 1866, $9,763,895 98, and 
since it was begun the property in the vicinity pays an increased tax of 
$1,034,551 81, and has an increased valuation of $34,600,395. 

The Drive and Ride are completed. Of the Drive there was com- 
pleted previous to January 1st, 1865, 9 miles 176 feet; completed during 
1865, 2,389 feet, or 9-pWo mi'es in all. Of the Bridle Road, completed 
previous to January 1st, 1865, b^%^^^ miles. Of the walks, completed 
previous to January 1st, 1865, 23 miles 1,408 feet; completed during 
1865, 2 miles 1,906 feet, or 25rVoff miles in all. 

Allowing an average of three persons to each vehicle passing into 
the Park, the following will show approximately the number of persons 
who have entered the Park for the past four years : 

1862 4,195,515 

1863 4,327,409 

1864 5,740,079 

1865 7,593,139 

The results are believed to be nearly correct ; the probability is that 
they are under rather than over-stated. 
7 



98 



APPENDIX. 






"5 
X 


•SaiOIHBA 


77,364 

70,768 

86,548 

125,864 

126,789 

153,279 

146,0-3 

157,756 

180,526 

104,709 

124,431 

71,184 




1,641 

4.472 

6,191 

11,344 

10,386 

11,874 

8,750 

9,705 

9,985 

10,429 

8,097 

5,486 


O 
TO 


•SNViaisaaaj 


658,741 

163,383 

77,743 

188,019 

191,527 

299,974 

467,729 

467,665 

340,355 

205,444 

94,578 

63,898 


to 
oT 


1H 


•saioiHaA 


83,246 

55,038 

67,757 

87,575 

147,344 

111,253 

142,511 

89,524 

92,159 

98,112 

92,861 

81,281 

1,148,161 


< 

3,953 

6,244 

7,635 

14,192 

13,533 

14,802 

8,085 

4,778 

5,288 

9,395 

9,308 

8,184 


o 

TO 

8 


•SNTiaisaaad 


555,668 

134,322 

90,630 

95,386 

151,678 

121,574 

380,165 

186,016 

225,256 

148,488 

87,291 

118,725 




00 


•saioiHaA 


38,069 

49,344 

44,520 

79,095 

3,618 

110,792 

92,363 

115,970 

163,600 

108,531 

50,990 

65,558 


o 
•* 
?f 


•9NTiai,saaba 


3,952 
3,489 
4,490 

10,094 
449 

12,6.30 
9,378 

12,250 
9,211 

10,035 
9,195 
5,561 


I— 


■SNTiaisaaaj 


51,462 

49,080 

41,064 

115,764 

137,999 

159,779 

89,150 

189,3(16 

181,8.50 

150,418 

75,231 

227,163 


T-T 


CO 

IN 


•saioiHaA 


32,773 
39,052 
32,446 
58,567 
77,974 
84,254 
62,074 
69,802 
70,184 
67,099 
60,789 
53,996 


o 
o 
1 


•SNViaisanba 


1,984 
1,671 
4,024 
7,839 
10,349 
8,919 
4,814 
4,715 
7,334 
7,822 
7,049 
5,125 


1 


•anviaisauaa 


254,672 

302,327 

81,865 

76,927 

133,701 

202,000 

184,048 

272,093 

192,236 

153,387 

97,507 

55,155 


00 




•saioiHaA 


18,540 
37,022 
20,906 
27,683 
43,586 
47,655 
35,648 
37,120 
49,624 
58,561 
43,226 
48,278 


03 

TJ1 


•SKYiaiaaaba 


r-T (>r o6" oT ecT »o" CD* -^ t-^ cT oo" <d" 


to 


■suYiaxsaaad 


600,007 

265,185 

43,349 

60,674 

110,761 

110,511 

91,076 

1.34,671 

173,003 

118,862 

70,789 

84,375 

1,863,263 






up 


> 

1. r 




> 
c 


August 

September.. 

October 

November.. 
December. . . 





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H 



APPENDIX. 99 



VI. RELIGION. 



NEW YORK CITY MISSION. 

RESULTS OP THE TEAE 1865. 

11 Mission stations. 

43 Missionaries, and an average of 667 visitors. 

64,314 Missionary visits. 

840,591 Tracts distributed. 

626 Bibles given, 

° ' ^ On behalf of the New York Bible Society. 



J 



884 Testaments given, 
2,652 Volumes loaned. 
2,573 Children led to Sabbath-schools. 

527 Children led to day-schools. 

303 Persons to Bible classes. 
5,980 Persons to church and mission. 

437 Temperance pledges. 
4,307 Religious meetings. 

124 Backsliders reclaimed. 

464 Persons united with churches. 

EESULTS OF THIRTY YEARS, FROM 1835 TO 1864. 

31,247,072 Tracts in English and other languages distributed. 
34,196 Bibles supplied to the destitute. 
40,080 Testaments supplied to children and others. 
140,660 Volumes lent from ward libraries. 
86,040 Children gathered into Sabbath, and 
11,905 Into day-schools. 

6,607 Persons gathered into Bible classes. 
73,361 Persons induced to attend church. 
32,016 Temperance pledges obtained. 
58,548 Religious meetings held. 

1,397 Backsliders reclaimed. 

9,912 Persons hopefully converted : and 

7,330 Converts united with evangelical churches. 



100 



APPENDIX. 



NEW YOEK ASSOCIATION FOR IMPEOVING THE CONDITION 
OF THE POOR. 

A Tabular Exhibit of the Operations of the Association, including the 
Receipts, Bequests, and Disbursements, since its Organization in 1844. 

















TEARS. 


VISITORS. 


VISITS. 


RECEIPTS. 
















MENTS. 


BELIEVED. 


BELIEVED. 


1844.... 


244 


10,042 


$10,522 


$8,704 


1,560 


6,240 


1845.... 


276 


18,044 


16,692 


17,338 


2,896 


11,554 


1846.... 


297 


25,963 


24,644 


24,827 


5,200 


20,840 


1847.... 


298 


26,435 


24,659 


24,040 


5,580 


25,110 


1848.... 


299 


28,040 


25,078 


25,483 


5,340 


24 030 


1849.... 


300 


30,590 


28,753 


26,551 


6,672 


29,844 


1850.... 


317 


27,180 


25,807 


23,821 


5,725 


25,762 


1851... 


324 


29,277 


33,656 


32,327 


6,202 


24,992 


1852.... 


387 


27,284 


34.577 


33,866 


6,307 


25,922 


1853.... 


357 


25,203 


31,-359 


29,692 


5,468 


24,606 


1854.... 


361 


28,142 


35,687 


34.661 


5.977 


26,896 


1855.... 


378 


55,893 


90,445 


95,878 


15,549 


62,396 


1856.... 


378 


48,244 


48,811 


51,059 


10,879 


43.516 


1857.... 


378 


32,294 


42,480 


42,085 


8,154 


32,732 


1858.... 


382 


48,178 


66,578 


67,094 


13,842 


54.268 


1859.... 


377 


46,944 


44,592 


44,855 


9,281 


44,577 


I860.... 


362 


40,886 


87,986 


40,565 


8,031 


35,942 


1861.... 


364 


44,569 


40,516 


43,725 


8,532 


38.394 


1862..., 


364 


36,732 


33,382 


33,461 


7,583 


33,815 


1863.... 


364 


13,482 


36,293 


32,934 


4,357 


19,532 


1864.... 


366 


18,106 


47,788 


47,416 


4,696 


20,810 


1865.... 


366 


22.309 


43,975 


49,300 


5,573 


22,285 


1866.... 


366 


24,222 


51,643 


45,089 


5,115 


19,878 


Sundry Bequests 




84,000 


84,000 






Tota 


1 


703,104 


1959,873 


$958,271 


158,519 


673,941 



DISPENSARIES. 

NAME OF DISPENSARY AND DATE OF ITS INCORPORATION AND ORGANIZATION. 



NAME. 


INCORPORATED. 


ORGANIZED. 


1 


New York 


A. D. 1794. 
A. D. 1827. 
A. D. 1882. 
A. D. 1851. 
A. D. 1852. 
A. D. 1862. 
A. D. 1862. 


A. D, 1791. 


2. 
3 


Northern 

Eastern 


A. D. 1827. 
A. D. 1834 


4 


Demilt 


A. D. 1851. 


5 


Nortli-Western 


A. D. 1852. 


6 


Nortli-Eastern 


A. D. 1862. 


7- 


Manhattan 


A. D. 1862. 



APPENDIX. 101 

The most complete account of the workings of these institutions is 
from the report of 1862, which gives a good idea of their present value. 

Number of male Patients in 1862 59,513 

" of female Patients " 86,085 

" treated at Dispensaries.. " 118,409 

" treated at their dwellings " 27,189 

Whole number of Patients treated in 1862 145,598 

Whole number of primary vaccinations in 1862 13,841 

" " Re-vaccinations " 4,567 

" " Persons vaccinated " 18,408 

" " Adult patients " 80,069 

" " Infant Patients " , 65,529 

" " Patients of American birth.... " 63,367 

" " " of foreign origin " 81,231 

" " " sent to Hospital " 6,437 

" " Deaths of Patients " 863 

" " Prescriptions dispensed " 274,648 

General average number of prescriptions dispensed to each patient (ex- 
cluding vaccinees— 18,408=127,190 patients) in 1862 2.16 

Aggregate amount of expenditures of the seven Dispensaries for the 
year 1862, excluding cost of repairs and management, or permanent 
improvement of property $21,199 19 

General average cost of medicines, and medical, surgical, and vaccine 

service to each patient, for the year 1862 Ms cts- 

Average number of years during which medical charity has been ex- 
tended to the sick-poor of New York by the Dispensaries 22.8 

Whole number of persons vaccinated by all the Dispensaries since the 
year 1804, or since the era of the discovery of the protective power 
of vaccine 275,844 

Whole number of the poor of New York who have received medicine, 
and medical, surgical, and vaccine service gratuitously, from all 
the Dispensaries since the organization of the first, in 1791, a pe- 
riod of seventy-two years 2,497,207 

Aggregate amount of expenditures of the several Dispensaries during 
the same period, for medicine, salaries for medical and surgical ser- 
vice, etc $426,868 66 

General average cost of medicines, and medical, surgical, and vaccine 
service to each Dispensary patient, from February 1st, 1791, to De- 
cember 31st, 1862 17 cts. 

Average number of patients treated annually, for the average twenty- 
two and eight-tenths years that the Dispensaries have been organ- 
ized and in operation 109,527 

RECAPITnLATION FOR 1862. 

Total value of Dispensary medical service $215,190 

Total value of the time saved to the sick-poor 102,555 

Estimated pecuniary value of the Dispensary system $317,745 

Deduct amount expended in support of the system 21,199 

Estimated saving to the public by the Dispensary system $296,546 



102 



APPENDIX. 



VII. IMMIGEATION 



SHOWING THE NUMBERS AND NATIVITIES OF ALIEN EMIGRANTS WHO ARRIVED 



COITNTRY OF BIBTH. 


1847. 


1848. 


1849. 


1850. 


1851. 


1852. 


1853. 


1854. 


1855. 




52,946 

53,180 

8,864 

, 2,354 

3,330 

1,947 

8,611 

472 

882 

139 

197 

551 

101 

299 

95 

26 

"34 

"io 

"23 

*"i 


91,061 

51,973 

23,062 

6,415 

2,734 

1,622 

1,560 

1,054 

1,207 

165 

321 

'253 

392 

52 

79 

"si 

57 

**28 

"12 

"'2 
.... 

"95 


112,591 

55,705 

28,321 

8,840 

2,683 

1,405 

2,447 

1,782 

3,300 

1,097 

602 

118 

214 

449 

159 

133 

172 

83 

287 

151 

38 

59 

23 

21 

9 

34 

6 

6 

8 


117,038 

45,535 

28,163 

6,772 

3,462 

2,380 

1,174 

1,520 

3,150 

1,110 

476 

230 

257 

554 

90 

188 

165 

104 

65 

164 

18 

61 

41 

28 

11 

32 

4 

4 

.... 


163,306 

69,919 

28,553 

7,302 

5,964 

4,499 

1,798 

2,189 

2,112 

872 

618 

475 

278 

575 

229 

422 

98 

121 

26 

81 

23 

50 

42 

12 

22 

10 


118,131 

118,611 

31,551 

7,694 

8,868 

6,471 

1,223 

2,531 

1,889 

2,005 

359 

82 

471 

265 

157 

188 

69 

120 

37 

73 

33 

48 

23 

42 

14 

18 

11 

5 


113,164 
119,644 

27,126 
6,456 
7,470 
4,604 
1,085 
1,182 

377 
1,630 

553 
34 

659 

"94 

186 

72 

175 

237 

6 

39 

"51 
37 
53 

.... 

10 


82,302 

176,986 

30,578 

4,909 

7,986 

8,883 

1,466 

1,288 

81 

1,859 

785 

398 

646 

11 

102 

169 

148 

111 

205 

128 

55 

2 

34 

58 

20 

"7 
6 


43,043 

52,892 

22,938 

4,240 

4,174 

3,273 

822 

1,118 

203 

304 

667 

1,201 

457 

19 

174 

346 

67 

112 

24 

9 

20 

64 

20 

18 

18 

5 

3 

2 












Holland 


Wales 






Italy 










Poland 




South America 










Sicily 








Turkey 




Africa 






Central America 


Annual Totals.... 


129,062 


182,176 


220,603 


212,796 


289,601 


300,989 


284,945 


319,223 


136,233 



APPENDIX. 



103 



TABLE. 



AT THE POET OF NEW TOEK, FROM MAY 5, 1847, TO OOTOBEE 1, 1866. 



1856. 


1857. 


1858. 


1859. 


1660. 


1861. 


1862. 


1863. 


1864. 


1865. 


1866. 


TOTAI,. 


44,276 


57,119 


25,075 


32,652 


47,330 


25,784 


32,217 


92,157 


89,399 


70,462 


73,258 


1,483,311 


66,113 


80,974 


31,874 


28,270 


37,899 


27,139 


27,740 


35,002 


57,446 


83,451 


81,287 


1,291,640 


23,787 


28,622 


12,324 


10,375 


11,361 


5,632 


7,975 


18,757 


23,710 


27,286 


28,624 


427,609 


4,723 


5,170 


2,718 


2,325 


1,617 


659 


692 


1,937 


3,126 


3,962 


3,917 


85,828 


2,984 


3,069 


1,786 


1,532 


1,549 


1,200 


1,187 


1,303 


1,804 


2,059 


2,390 


67,534 


2,559 


2,454 


1,315 


791 


1,442 


1,398 


1,254 


1,194 


1,652 


2,513 


2,769 


55,405 


1,666 


1,784 


348 


261 


440 


831 


456 


407 


615 


729 


211 


22,384 


1,376 


887 


566 


500 


811 


697 


1,062 


1,143 


659 


605 


494 


21,816 


43S 


62 


3 


36 


53 


93 


22 


238 


88 


158 


484 


14,879 


918 


619 


237 


318 


361 


382 


663 


1,370 


1,516 


2,337 


3,818 


21,630 


690 


596 


669 


399 


542 


750 


487 


444 


475 


591 


674 


10,895 


850 


444 


253 


57 


76 


165 


195 


456 


186 


97 


120 


5,988 


330 


263 


146 


234 


228 


190 


124 


202 


196 


224 


250 


5,721 


225 


330 


344 


416 


523 


165 


156 


256 


236 


283 


201 


5,699 


469 


453 


284 


493 


495 


612 


1,689 


1,580 


665 


427 


1,458 


9,977 


142 


245 


88 


114 


80 


43 


50 


137 


198 


428 


207 


3,464 


426 


405 


324 


164 


89 


67 


39 










2,305 


163 


66 


92 


138 


110 


88 


92 


"hb 


"124 


'iog 


'i34 


1,983 


30 


93 


27 


45 


19 


14 


13 


3 


34 


42 


93 


1,385 


30 


40 


18 


81 


23 


11 


67 


77 


40 


77 


34 


1,110 


19 


11 


13 


13 


22 


36 


46 


47 


37 


93 


130 


731 


57 


30 


17 


25 


25 


19 


33 


17 


35 


43 


27 


612 


19 


11 


13 


13 


22 


45 


13 


38 


92 


70 


54 


636 


10 


26 


19 


1 


4 


1 


9 


1 


3 


3 


.... 


293 


8 


11 


15 


4 


13 


10 


15 


5 


41 


36 


13 


320 






7 




4 


2 


1 


3 


1 


7 


15 


162 


'"2 


'"k 


2 


""e 


2 


1 


6 


2 


13 


5 


3 


85 


4 




6 


8 


3 


5 


3 


2 

'"h 


5 


5 

"is 


8 

"ii 

"ii 

10 


82 
8 
20 
95 
29 
10 


142,315 


183,742 


78,583 


79,266 


105,123 


65,539 


76,306 


156,844 


182,296 


196,352 


200,711 


3,542,705 



104 



APPENDIX. 



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106 APPEISTDIX. 



VIII. MISCELLANEOUS. 



OHILDKEN'S AID SOCIETY. 

This Society has been in existence thirteen years, and has paid 
$304,190 99 in charity. 

ANALYSIS OF DISBTJESEMENTS FOR TEAK ENDING FEBETTAET IST, 1866. 

Industrial Schools (13 in number) $16,681 16 

Donations by individuals for special purposes 1,712 99 

Newsboys' Lodging-House 10,058 13 

Girls' Lodging-House 7,356 44 

Emigration Account • 18,735 72 

Refuge for Homeless Children (corner of Twenty- 
fourth street and Eighth avenue) 1,322 59 

Salaries and Compensation to 13 different persons 9,422 06 
General expenses, printing, rent, postage, etc., etc. 6,754 56 

$72,043 65 

Balance on hand, February 1st, 1866 2,206 08 

Total.. $74,249 73 

EMIGEATION OF CHILDEEN. 

The following table embraces thirteen years : 

Sent, up to February 1, 1854 207 

" February 1, 1855 863 

" February 1, 1856 936 

" February 1, 1857 742 

" February 1, 1858 733 

" February 1, 1859 779 

" February 1, 1860 814 

" February 1, 1861 804 

" February 1, 1862 884 

" February 1, 1863 791 

" February 1, 1864 1,034 

" February 1, 1865 1,235 

" February 1, 1866 1,450 

Total 11,272 



APPENDIX. 



107 



Eleven thousand two hundred and seventy-two rescued from almost 
certain destruction ! At least ten thousand of these may be regarded as 
saved, who, but for the interposition of the Children's Aid Society, 
would have been lost. If, as we are told, there is rejoicing over one 
sinner saved, have not the friends of the Society abundant cause for 
thankfulness and gratitude ? 

The report of the Children's Aid Society, from which these state- 
ments are taken, sums up the long and effective service of this institu- 
tion to the welfare of the city, and proves the priceless worth of the 
ministry of Eev. Charles L. Brace among the children and youth of 
New York. His volume of Plain Sermons to Newsboys is the first fruit 
of what should be a new department of literature or oratory — the adap- 
tation of great truths and duties to minds of little culture and many 
trials, wauts, and temptations. 

GIELS' LODGING HOUSE. 

STATEMENT. 



February 1st, 1865, in House. 

Since received 

March, 1865 

April, '' 



May, 

June, " ... 

July, " ... 

August, " . . . 

Sept., " ... 

Oct., " ... 

Nov., " ... 

Dec, " ... 
January, 1866. 



Total 1,017 



Number 

of 
Lodgers. 


Number 

of 
Lodgings. 


Number 

of 

Lodgings 

Paid. 


Number 

of 
Meals. 


39 








57 
62 


1,070 
1,238 


463 

485 


3,391 

3,780 


74 


1,205 


374 


3,354 


76 


1,348 


343 


3,812 


74 


1,304 


289 


3,836 


61 
73 


1,311 
1,052 


245 

315 


3,265 
3 092 


88 


1,058 


313 


3,849 


104 


1,254 


421 


4,428 


102 


1,364 


351 


4,452 


102 


1,454 


309 


4,550 


105 


1,593 


345 


4,917 


1,017 


15,251 


4,259 


46,726 



Number 

of 

Meals 

Paid. 



1,159 

1,215 

932 

877 
724 
615 
790 
784 
1,052 
878 
772 
846 

10,644 



Average cost per meal, 5y cents. 

121 girls sent to situations. 
45 " found employment. 
21 " sent to other institutions. 
32 " gone West. 
35 " returned to friends. 
About 3,000 garments have been made. 
6 



108 



APPENDIX. 



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APPENDIX. 



109 



THE COOPER UNION FOR SCIENCE AND ART. 

This Institution has now been in operation seven years. Its receipts 
have been $168,191 84, and its expenses $164,163 57. 

TRADES AND PEOFE88ION8 OF THE PUPILS OF THE COOPEK UNION 



Clerks and Bookkeepers 

Machinists and Iron Workers 

Teachers and Students 

Carpenters and Cabinet Makers. . . . 
Draughtsmen and Pattern Makers. 

Masons and Builders 

Stone and Marble Cutte rs 

Painters 

Piano Forte Makers 

Engineers 

Carvers and Turners 

Engravers and Lithographers 

Photographers ~. 

Blacksmiths 

Artists 

Jewellers and Watchmakers 

Printers 

Gardeners 

Bookbinders 

Glass Stainers 

Sundry Occupations 



Totals 210 



i 221 ! 



32 
251 



46 



228 I 15 1,067 



271 

232 

49 

73 

20 

11 

20 

19 

10 

13 

44 

54 

10 

8 

6 

22 

24 

7 

5 

7 

162 



NTJMBEE OF VISITOES TO THE READING ROOM. 



January. ., 
February. 

March 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August 

September 
October..., 
I?ovember 
December. 

Total. 



1860. 




1861. 



24,240 

24,l;.3 

22,543 

20,470 

19,597 

17,956 

16,459 

10,914* 

17,546 

19,884 

19,630 

15,244 



1862. 



19,866 
18,359 
20,593 
19,327 
15,996 
11.936 
13,331 
8,501* 
16,796 
17,970 
16,288 
17,889 



1863. 


1864. 


1865. 


17,389 


16,365 


15,862 


15,602 


15,021 


15,371 


15,911 


15,296 


16,735 


13,835 


15,992 


14.038 


12,962 


15,430 


15,283 


12,786 


14.442 


13,529 


11,676 


13,986 


17,607 


3,388* 


4,701* 


*5,692 


16,270 


18,045 


20,898 


16,762 


18,320 


19,024 


16,871 


19,368 


20,956 


18,919 


16,460 


19,662 


171,871 


18?,426 


194,648 



Closed during part of the month. 



110 APPEINTDIX. 

MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSSOOIATION. 
The number of volumes added during the past year was, 

By donation 170 

By purchase 8,853 

9,023 
Of which, were 

Folios and Quartos 85 

Octavos 3,080 

Duodecimos 5,858 

9,023 

Less duplicate volumes sold 1,074 

Net increase of books . . . .' 7,949 

Number of volumes in Library, as per last report. 73,175 

Present number of volumes 81,124 

The additions are of the following classes : 

Theology Ill 

Mental and Moral Science, and General Literature 617 

Political Science, Law, etc 292 

History, Biography, and Travels 1,207 

Natural Sciences 62 

Medicine 49 

Tseful Arts 88 

Encyclopaedic 4 

Fiction 6,593 

9,023 

The number of volumes delivered from the Library was 118,842 

From Up-Town Branch 36,110 

From Down-Town Office 23,266 

Total 178,218 

NEW YORK SOCIETY LIBRARY. 

This Library now contains over 52,000 volumes, and its annual re- 
ceipts are, by the Report of 1866, $5,943 61, a poor and beggarly sum 
for the oldest institution of tbe kind in the city, and the only avowedly 
family library. The number of books taken out yearly has increased, 
since 1861-2, from 19,109 to 32,642. The yearly assessment has been 
raised from six to ten dollars, and the number of books may be expected 
to increase. 



APPENDIX. Ill 



THE ASTOR LIBRARY. 



This institution, which was incorporated January 18th, 1849, is one 
of the most significant facts that introduced this city to its rank as a 
cosmopolitan centre of learning. It does for the higher literature what 
the Cooper Institute does for popular instruction, and the two combine 
to provide our scholars and our people at large with priceless opportu- 
nities of improvement. The original endowment of the Astor Library 
•was $400,000, which has been increased by over $300,000 by Wm. B. 
Astor, son of John Jacob Astor, $50,000 of the sum having lately been 
given, $20,000 of the donation to go for the immediate purchase of 
books, and the balance towards the endowment. 

The present number of volumes in the Library, including pamphlets, 
is about 145,000. These are the main facts from the report of the 
trustees for 1866 : 

The Library continues to be largely and advantageously used by the 
public. The report of the superintendent exhibits in tabular form the 
number of readers monthly during the year, in the departments, respec- 
tively, of science and art, and of history and literature, arranged under 
fifty-three separate subdivisions. It is believed to be of general interest 
in showing the comparative tendencies of the public mind to different 
branches of knowledge. 

The number of readers in both the departments was 19,540; of 
whom 11,282 were occupied with history and literature, and 8,258 with 
science and art. 

In addition to these, 3,545 were admitted into the alcoves; 1,374 
having been occupied in history and literature, and 2,171 in the various 
branches of science and art. 

The whole number of books read during the year was 44,966. 

By the treasurer's report it will appear that $3,375 53 was expended 
during the year for books and binding ; that the income of the Library 
was $11,169 10, from a total investment of $184,868 39, and the ex- 
penses were $8,427 88. 

The report of the superintendent shows that there were added to 
the Library during the year, by purchase, exclusive of periodicals and 
transactions of learned societies, 587 volumes and 63 pamphlets, and by 
donations, 196 volumes and 112 pamphlets. 



112 APPENDIX. 



NOTES OF THE ERIE CANAL. 

New York City, January 18fA, 1867. 

My Dear Db. Osgood : — I have your kind note of yesterday, in 
which you ask for some facts illustrating the interest which your friend 
and fellow-laborer in the New York Historical Society — my father — 
took in the project of connecting the waters of Lake Erie with those of 
the Atlantic. Cadwallader D. Golden, in his elaborate memoir, has 
given so full an account of the building of the great work, and paid 
such ample justice to its originators, that, perhaps, I cannot better meet 
your wishes, than by confining myself to such topics as shall enable a 
younger generation to recall more vividly the painful agency of the Erie 
Canal in developing the internal resources of our State. 

Great as was the assistance given to the canal project by the act of 
the New York Legislature of the 8th of April, 1811, the obstacles in 
the way of its successful completion were by no means removed. The 
same incredulity as to the practicability of the canal, and the same ap- 
prehensions as to the capacity of the State, continued to raise a fierce 
opposition in the Legislature against any appropriations for carrying on 
the work which it had itself authorized. Many attempts were accord- 
ingly made to arrest, or at least curtail and postpone the project ; and 
often, during the progress of the undertaking, it seemed as if it would 
be utterly abandoned. Party spirit, at that time, ran high ; and the 
greatest effort, on the part of its supporters, was required to persuade 
the people of the State to give it their support; at the polls. In accom- 
plishing this result, the Commercial Advertiser, of this city, gave power- 
ful aid. That paper, which had always been the organ of the Federal- 
ists, became, upon Mr. Stone's assuming its management in 1820, a 
staunch advocate of the Clintonians. A strong personal friendship for 
Mr. Clinton, on the part of its editor, together with a firm conviction 
of the necessity for a canal through the interior of New York State, led 
to the position thus assumed. The trials and rebuffs experienced by 
Governor Clinton and his supporters in pushing the canal project, and 
the energy which fought it through to a triumphant end, are matters of 
history. The Erie Canal was completed in the fall of 1825. At ten 
o'clock on the morning of the twenty-sixth of October of the same year, 
the first canal-boat — the Seneca Chief — left Buffalo, having on board 
Governor Clinton ; and the booming of cannon, placed at intervals of a 



APPEISTDIX. 113 

few miles along the entire line of the canal from Buffalo to Albany, and 
thence along the banks of the Hudson to Sandy Hook, announced the 
successful termination of the enterprise. In New York City, especially, 
this event wa.s celebrated by extraordinary civic and military ceremo- 
nies ; and tbe citizens gave themselves up to the wildest demonstrations 
of joy. Nor was this joy ill-timed or excessive. " For a single State to 
achieve such a victory — not only over the doubts and fears of the wary, 
hut over the obstacles of nature — causing miles of massive rocks at the 
mountain ridge to yield to its power — turning tbe tide of error as well 
as that of the Tonnewanda — piling up the waters of the mighty Niagara, 
as well as those of the beautiful Hudson — in short, causing a navigable 
river to flow with gentle current down the steepy mount of Lockport — 
to leap the river of Genesee — to encircle tbe brow of Irondequoit as 
with the laurel's wreath — to march through the rich fields of Palmyra 
and of Lyons — to wend its way through the quicksands of the morass 
at the Cayuga — to pass unheeded tbe delicious licks at Onondaga— to 
smile through Oneida's verdant landscape — to hang upon the arm of the 
ancient Mohawk, and with her, after gaily stepping down the cadence 
of the Little Falls and the Oohoes, to rush to the embrace of the spark- 
ling Hudson — and all in the space of eight short years, was a work of 
which the oldest and richest nations of Christendom might well he 
proud." * Mr. Stone, as one of the most zealous champions of the canal, 
was appointed to write the Naeeative of the Celebeation, receiving 
a silver medal and box fi-om the Common Council of New York City, 
together with the thanks of that body. 

In connection with the Erie Canal, and its influence in building up 
the interior towns of our State, Mr. Stone was wont to relate the fol- 
lowing anecdote : In 1820, he visited Syracuse with Joshua Forman, the 
founder of that city, and one of the earliest and most zealous friends of 
the Erie Canal. "I lodged for the night," says Mr, Stone, " at a miser- 
able tavern, thronged by a company of salt-boilers from Salina, forming 
a group of about as rough-looking specimens of humanity as I had ever 
seen. Their wild visages, beards thick and long, and matted hair, even 
now rise up in dark, distant, and picturesque effect before me. It was 
in October, and a flurry of snow during the night had rendered the 
morning aspect of the country more dreary than the evening before. 
The few houses, standing upon low and almost marshy ground, and sur- 
rounded by trees and entangled thickets, presented a very uninviting 
scene. ' Mr. Forman,' said I, ' do you call this a village ? It would 
make an owl weep to fly over it.' ' Never mind,' said he in reply, ' yoxi 
will live to see it a city yet!'''''' Mr. Stone did, indeed, live to see it a 

* Stone's Narrative. 



114 APPENDIX. 

city, when he wrote the above in 1840, with mayor and aldermen, and 
a population of more than twelve thousand. 

Syracuse, however, was not the only town that vindicated the fore- 
sight of Clinton and For man. In the fall of 1829, Mr. Stone made a 
tour of the towns and villages in the central part of the State, partly 
for recreation, but more especially for the purpose of observing for 
himself the great impetus given to internal improvement by the canal. 
Familiar, however, as he had been for the last four years with the pro- 
gress which had been making, he was scarcely prepared fur the signs of 
growth and prosperity which met him on every side. His amazement 
is pictured in a few extracts here given from the diary kept by him on 
this journey. 

" Between five and six o'clock we entered Utica, which, nine years 
ago, the period of my last visit to it, ranked only as a flourishing village. 
It had now grown as if by magic to the dimensions of a large city ; and 
it was with utter amazement that I beheld the long streets and rows 
and blocks of large, beautiful country seats, stores and dwellings through 
which our coach conveyed us in driving to the lodgings I had selected. 
I had heard much of the march of improvement in Utica, since the 
completion of the Grand Canal, but I had no idea of the reality. Kip 
Van Winkle himself, after his thirty years' nap in a glen of the Kats- 
bergs, was not more amazed than I was at the present aspect and mag- 
nitude of this beautiful place. Bagg's Hotel, to which I directed my 
drive, was in the very heart of the village, and the centre of business 
at the period of my last visit. Now it was quite in the suburbs. The 
houses were then scattered, but now they are closely built, lofty and 
spacious, and the length of some of the streets, like New York, begin 
to look like a wilderness of bricks." 

" Tuesday, Sept. 22(Z. Arrived at Syracuse at half-past ten o'clock, 
and had the unexpected pleasure of being greeted by my old and highly 
valued friend, Seth Hunt, a gentleman of extensive travel and vast gen- 
eral information. I looked upon the village as I stepped on shore with 
still more astonishment than at Utica. Another enchanted city ! I ex- 
claimed, as I glanced upward and around upon splendid hotels, and 
rows of massive buildings in all directions — crowded, too, with people, 
all full of life and activity. The prediction of my friend, Joshua For- 
man, when I was here nine years ago, is already realized. For if noble 
ranges of buildings, two or three large and tasteful churches, busy 
wharves and streets, and all the life and animation of a large commer- 
cial place, vvill constitute a city, then, most assuredly, Syracuse may be 
called by that name. And as the county buildings, now erecting upon 
an extensive scale, have been located midway between Salina and Syra- 
cuse, the two towns will be soon united, as Greenwich is to New York. 



APPENDIX. 115 

Within twenty years, therefore, Syracuse will equal the present size of 
Albany. Salt of the best quality can here be produced, at the cheapest 
rate, for the whole continent." 

Leaving Syracuse, Mr. Stone visited successively the pleasant vil- 
lages of Marcellus, Skan^ateles, Auburn and Lyons, the rapid growth of 
which surprised him scarcely less than had Utica and Syracuse. " This 
village too," continues the diary, in speaking of Lyons, "was a wilder- 
ness at the period of my last visit ; now it has grown into considerable 
importance. It is the shire town of Wayne County, and in addition to 
a number of shops and stores and the county buildiugs, it contains many 
respectable and some elegant residences. Among the latter is the seat 
of Myron Holley, E?q., formerly one of the leading and most able and 
eflBcient of our canal commissioners, whose names will be perpetuated 
as long as the lakes and the ocean are connected by the golden commer- 
cial chain forged under the direction of the great Clinton. Mr. Ilolley 
showed me through his grounds ; and I was much surprised to find one 
of the richest and most beautiful gardens that I had ever seen. It con- 
tains some six or eight acres, which was forest at the time of my visit 
in 1820. Now it was elegantly laid out and cultivated, and planted 
with fruit-trees, plants, shrubs, and vines, in rich variety and profusion. 
The size to which cherry, peach, pear and plum trees, quince bushes, to 
say nothing of the beautiful shade trees in the lawn, had attained since 
this land was appropriated to its present purpose was truly wonderful. 
Cherry and apple trees, planted eight years_since, now measure ten and 
thirteen inches in diameter, and every vegetable seems to flourish in this 
genial soil with the same unequalled vigor and thrift." 

Eochester, however, seems to have completed his astonishment. 

" Friday. Oct. Id. And this is Rochester ! The far-famed city of 
the west, which has sprung up like Jonah's gourd! Rochester, with its 
two thousand houses, its elegant ranges of stores, its numerous churches 
and public buildings, its boats and bridges, its huge mills of stone, like 
so many castles, its lagoons, quays, manufactories, arcades, museums, 
everything — all standing where stood a frowning forest in 1812. Here 
I am, near the very spot, where, in a thick wood, my namesake, Enos 
Stone, in the autumn of 1811, had a remarkable fight with an old she-bear, 
which, in anticipation of the present doctrines of Tammany Hall, was 
carrying out the agrarian principle by sharing his little patch of corn." 

But I am already making this letter too long. On his return to New 
York, Mr. Stone gave his readers the results of this tour in a series of 
articles — the publication of which confirmed more strongly than ever in 
the public mind, the forecast and wisdom of the originators and execu- 
tors of the Geand Eeie Canal. Most cordially yours, 

William L. Stone. 



116 APPENDIX. 

P. S. I append a statistical statement of the Erie Canal, bronglit up 
to the beginning of the present year, the materials for which were 
kindly furnished me by my friend, the Hon. Nathaniel S. Benton, for 
many years our able Canal Auditor : 

Length, Albany to Buffalo 363 miles. 

"Width at surface YO feet. 

" bottom 42 " 

Depth 7 " 

Width of tow-path 14 " 

Burden of boats 80 tons. 

Length of locks 90 feet. 

Width " 15 " 

Number " 84 

Amount of tolls in 1823 $199,655 08 

" « 1866 $3,966,522 52 

Amount of tons going to tide-water from the Western 

States in 1836 54,219 

Amount of tons going to tide-water from the Western 

States in 1866 2,285,716 

Total amount of tons going to tide-water from the West- 
ern States, from 1836 to 1866, inclusive 40,485,738 

Total amount of tolls from 1823 to 1866, inclusive $90,153,279 19 

Amount of tons going to tide-water from New York 

State in 1836 364,906 

Amount of tons going to tide-water from New York 

State in 1866 287,948 

Total amount of tons going to tide-water from New 

York State, from 1836 to 1866, inclusive 12,276,229 

Amount of tons going from tide-water in 1836. 133,796 

« " " 1866 626,974 

Total amount of tons going from tide-water from 1836 

to 1866, inclusive 10,334,311 

Estimated value of all property transported on Erie Canal 

in 1837 $47,720,879 

Estimated value of all property transported on Erie Canal 

in 1865 $186,114,718 

Total estimated value of all property transported on Erie 

Canal, from 1837 to 1865, inclusive $3,439,407,522 

Amount of tons going to New York by canal-boats, on 

different canals in the State, without breaking bulk, 

for 1857 381,390 



APPENDIX. 



117 



Amount of tons going to New York by canal-boats, on 
diflferent canals in the State, without breaking bulk, 
for 1866 1,633,172 

Total amount of tons going to New York by canal-boats, 
on diiferent canals in the State, without breaking 
bulk, from 1857 to 1866, inclusive 11,775,396 

Amount of tons arriving at tide-water, the product of 

New York State, on the Erie Canal, for 1836 364,901 

Amount of tons arriving at tide-water, the product of 

New York State, on the Erie Canal, for 1865 173,538 

Total amount of tons arriving at tide-water, the product 
of New York State, on the Erie Canal, from 1836 
to 1865, inclusive 11,792,314 

The original cost of the Erie Canal was $7,143,789 86 

Cost of enlargement $33,080,613 80 



Total $40,224,403 66 

Wm. L. S. 



SPEECH OF HON. J. B. VAENUM ON THE GOVERNMENT 
OF THE CITY. 

Mr. J. B. Varnum, Jr., desired to refer the committee to a report of 
the Committee on Cities and Villages of the Assembly on the subject of 
the present city charter, which report would be found in the Assembly 
Documents for 1857. It states, in a very concise form, what portions 
of said charter were derived from former charters, and the reasons for 
those sections which were new. A perusal of it would, he believed, 
materially aid the committee in deciding what the defects were in that 
instrument, and what recommendations to make. The year 1857 was 
one during which a great excitement prevailed in New York city on 
the subject of reform in the city government and police, an excitement 
which gradually extended to most of the other cities in the State, so 
that the Committee on Cities were overwhelmed. It was in that year 
that the Metropolitan Police bill, the City Charter, and the Supervisors' 
bill were passed. That committee had not the advantage of sessions in 
the city of New York ; but large numbers of persons appeared before 
them with drafts of charters, and suggestions which embodied much reli- 
able information ; but comparatively little of this material was in a very 
available, systematic form, and the committee found themselves unable 
to agree upon any one of the plans proposed. They therefore decided 
to make a charter which should combine, as far as possible, whatever 



lis APPENDIX. 

was good in foimor cliartors and in the suggestions laid before them. 
The result of a compromise of opinions among themselves was the 
present charter, which was amended in the Senate by the insertion of 
Aldermanic Districts, and which was at the time generally received as 
a great improvement upon its predecessors, although time has shown it 
to be by no means free from the defects incident to everything human. 
Still, he believed very sliglit amendments were all that were required. 
Otiiers have commented upon the absence of any proper system for 
examining accoimts. He would advert to one or two other points. 
Arid first as to the Legislatice Department. It would be found that a 
large proportion of the plans which w*ere being presented in the news- 
papers, and some of which he presumed wa^re laid before the committee, 
had heretofore been tried in one form or another. lie had recently 
seen an earni-st recommendation that the Board of CouncUmen should 
be composed of a large number rei>resentiug small districts, the writer 
apparently not knowing that we once had a hoard of sixty councilmen, 
established by a law passed in 1853 (Laics of 1853, p. 410). Frior to 
that time the two Boards, or the Aldermen and Assistant Aldermen, 
were each composed of the same numbers, chosen by the same constit- 
uencies, with only the difierence that the Aldermen were chosen for 
two years, so that one formed scarcely any check upon the other. A 
number of most respectable and public-spirited citizens proposed and 
carried through the Board of Sixty. The idea was, that in small dis- 
tricts electors would be more likely to know the man who was pre- 
sented for their suftrages, and that political parties wotild have to be 
more particular in presenting men who were fovoraWy known. ITow- 
ever plausible this theory might be in a country district, it proved to 
be entirely fallacious in a city, where four-fifths of the voters never can 
be induced to look at such a ticket until they go to vote on election day, 
and where, owing to the constant changes of residences, there is 
scarcely any such thing known as neighborly association. Its opera- 
tion was precisely the reverse of what was anticipated. Men who 
could not have had influence or character enough to obtain a nomina- 
tion in a whole ward, managed to pull the party wires so as to secure 
it in a small section, and the consequence w-as, we had, with here and 
there an exception, a class of men inferior to those who had previously 
been chosen — small fry, hoping to swim in deeper waters — men who 
expected to live by politics. It operated precisely as the single district 
system is said to have operated, in sending to the Legislature men in- 
ferior to those who had been elected under the general ticket system. 
Tlie people became thoroughly sick of the board, and there was no 
hesitation about abolishing it; but what should be substituted was not 
so clear. Arguing from the experience in regard to Assemblymtu be- 



APPENDIX. 119 

fore referred to, a board elected by general ticket was strongly urged; 
but that was objected to because the board thus constituted would 
always be composed entirely of one political party. The committee 
adopted the present plan as a compromises-four general tickets, one in 
each Senatorial District. They also introduced the systena of classify- 
ing the terms of Aldermen, so that those from the district liaving odd 
numbers go out one year, and those from the even numbers the next. 
It is doubtful whether any improvement can be made upon this system, 
unless, perhaps, by increasing the number of Councilmen on each gen- 
eral ticket. He did not believe that any legislation would secure the 
choice of better men. The object of a second board is to furnish some 
check upon hasty legislation, and to that end it is desirable that it 
should be chosen by a different constituency or in a different way. 
Secondly, as to the Board of Supervisors. That board had formerly con- 
sisted of the Aldermen, Mayor, and Eecorder, and lie, the speaker, had 
never been entirely satisfied that there was a necessity for substituting 
the present board for the purpose of settling accounts, although at the 
time he concurred in it, deferring to the judgment and larger experience 
of others. The idea originated in the manner in which our Alms House 
department was formerly managed by ten governors — half of them 
elected, and half appointed from those having the next highest number 
of votes. The first ten governors were named in the hill (^Laws of 1849, 
p. 367),* and being mostly men of well-known philanthropy, character, 
and means, so long as they remained it worked very well, and it was 
hoped to continue a class of men who would be actuated by the same 
motives which control the managers of the House of Refuge and other 
charitable institutions. But by degrees, as one term after another ex- 
pired and others were elected by the people, many men were introduced 
who only cared to use it as a stepping-stone for some other position, 
and made it more a means of frolic than of doing good, the tempta- 
tion to enter this board being greater, because a nomination was an 
election ; and so it happened, in course of time, thart this system was 
wiped out, and a loard of four, to he appointed by the Comptroller, estab- 
lished {Laics of 1860. p. 1026), which he believed had thus far been in 
good hands. He wished to make no reflection upon the members of the 
Board of Supervisors; but he thought the committee might understand 
how the mode of their election must Inevitably result, eventually, in 
the same way as had the experiment with the ten governors. 

Thirdly, in reference to the executive power: 

That was formerly vested, mainly in the Mayor. But the same 
mania for decentralization, which pervaded the State and led to the 

* This was the first interference (so-callod) at Albany. 



120 APPENDIX. 

Constitution of 1846, entered into the plans of all who were reforming 
city charters, and they went from one extreme to another. 

In the State, it resulted in depriving the Governor of any voice in 
naming liis cabinet, so that the Comptroller, Secretary of State, Treas- 
urer, and Attorney-General were to be elected. Even the State Prison 
Inspectors were to be chosen by the people. With as much propriety 
might you choose in that way the directors of Lunatic and Idiot Asy- 
lums, So it was in the city. The Mayor had the policemen, as well as 
other offices, in his gift, which was supposed to give him too large 
an army hy which to secure his re-election, especially as the jyolice were 
appointed for short terms, instead of as now during good behavior. 
And so, in 1849, we passed a law providing for the election of six heads 
of departments ly the people, and as the city election then took place 
at the same time with that of the State, it happened that we sometimes 
had fourteen ballot boxes at one election, and people were bewildered 
by the multitude of ticliets. So we had six heads of departments, sail- 
ing on together, each responsible to no one but the people, which was 
really no responsibility at all, and when the subject came to be consid- 
ered in 1857, there were few who could say a word on behalf of this 
system. Mr. Varnum had voted for it in 1849, and was in 1857 so well 
convinced of his error, that he was ready, as one of the committee, to 
vest the whole appointing power in the Mayor; but the majority were 
impressed with the argument that the Comptroller, who had charge of 
the finance?:, and the Corporation Counsel, who was the adviser of the 
city, should be made independent of the Mayor and Councils, so that 
they might not be influenced in their actions by a desire to retain their 
places. Reference was made to the changes made by General Jackson 
in the offices of Attorney-General and Secretai-y of the Treasury, in 
order to secure the removal of the deposits. But these arguments were, 
after all, more plausible than real, at least so far as the Comptroller 
was concerned, who must keep his accounts and make payment accord- 
ing to law, and, if the Mayor does not appoint this officer himself, let it 
be by the two boards, as United States Senator is chosen by the Legis- 
lature, and so with Corporation Counsel. It is quite enough to ash the 
people to elect Mayor, Aldermen, and Councilmen, which is more than 
they can well manage ; but which there was, he supposed, no other way 
of doing except by the people, or rather by the party conventions. We 
might, however, hope occasionally, by a spasmodic effort, to revolution- 
ize the city, and elect a respectable man for Mayor. We have had 
many such. And we ought to impose on him the same kind of respon- 
sibility which is imposed on the President of the United States. Give 
him the appointment of aU his assistants, with or without the approval 
of the Aldermen — he rather thought without it — certamly, without 



APPENDIX. 121 

" their advice." Give him these appointments, and then you can hlame 
him if anything goes wrong. Better have one bad man, whom we can 
call to account for his stewardship, than have to deal with half a dozen, 
each of which will shift the burdens on to the others. The idea that 
the Mayor would use this patronage to keep himself in office is not 
sustained by past experience in regard to executive stations. Neither 
President nor old-time Governors have found that patronage helped 
them much ; for every man they appoint, hundreds are disappointed. 
Besides, the Mayor no longer controls the police, which are now, very 
properly, appointed iy Commissioners, in the choice of whom the men 
had no agency. The charter of 185Y did not give the power of removal, 
except hy consent of the Aldermen, and for cause. This was a great mis- 
taTce. A man might be utterly inefficient in the judgment of the 
Mayor; but he could not assign that as a cause, without going into 
particulars which would, perhaps, not impress another as sustaining 
the charge. It often occurs in private business, that you may wish to 
get rid of clerks and employes, with whose work you are not exactly 
satisfied, yet you would hesitate about making charges against them. 
And so it is here. The Mayor, being responsible, should be the sole 
judge, as the President is, and should be required to give no reasons to 
Aldermen or any body else. If he appoints bad men or removes good 
ones, let the people remove him ; but don't ask the people to watch 
Comptroller and Counsel as well. The charter of 1857 did authorize 
the Mayor to suspend; hut, hy an amendment which was slily introduced 
at a subsequent session, this power had heen rendered doubtful, and this 
brought the speaker to say, lastly, that some action should he taTcen 
toward securing a constitutional check upon this constant tinTcering of 
charters. He could think of no other way, except by a provision that 
no amendment of city or village charters should take eflfect as laws, 
until they have been submitted to and approved by electors of the city 
or village. Such alterations would not be so readily asked for, or, if 
asked, would not be as readily passed, if they were in each case to go 
through the ordeal of submission to the people. As it is now, we often 
hardly know what is proposed before we hear that it is passed. If it 
were to be submitted to the people, it would at least have to be pub- 
lished, and the motives of the authors, whether good or bad, explained. 
At least the assent of two successive legislatures should be required. 

Since the above remarks were made, my experience as an Alderman 
has satisfied me that the only real relief must come from a Constitu- 
tional amendment, so as to confine voters at municijyal elections in 
cities to the holders of real estate, or to those who can read and speak 
the English language. There is now one member of the Board of Coun- 
cilmen who cannot read, and cannot even write his name. The real 



122 APPENDIX. 

estate qualification is the best ; but I suppose it is useless to expect 
either. Tlie only other remedy is to have the corporation authorities 
appointed at Albany. The commissions appointed at Albany have 
•worked pretty well thus far ; but, by degrees they will be corrupted, I 
fear, by the same influences. There must be some central power to 
keep them all in check. At the last Legislature a Board of Control 
was proposed ; but it left the Supervisors and Common Council in full 
operation, because the former could not be abolished under the Consti- 
tution, it was thought. 

J. B. v., Je. 



DANGERS FROM MISRULE. 



The Discourse favors the general belief of our 
citizens, that the city has a larger population than 
ever before, and that the census of 1865 was wrong, 
or recorded the results of temporary depression. It 
is hard to resist the impression that the city is over- 
flowing with people, alike with visitors and residents, 
and every tenement is occupied, and there is a call 
for thousands more of houses. It is but just, how- 
ever, to present the other view of the subject, which 
is effectually given in this article from the New Yor'k 
Times : 

A LESSON FROM STATISTICS. 

Our readers will bear witness that we have never refrained from 
predicting unpleasant things in regard to the consequences of our mu- 
nicipal disorders and bad government on the prosperity of our city. 

We have said again and again— we fear to the weariness of our 
readers- that our citizens would not bear forever this atrocious mis- 
government, these incessant jobs, this heavy taxation, the horrible 
condition of our streets, and the discomforts of the city. It was plain 
to any one who looked below the surface, that all these shameless jobs 
of the Common Council were not mere amusements of these represent- 
atives, which injured nothing except our moral sense, but that they 
included definite sums taken out of the pockets of every rent-payer or 
consumer in the city. For every dollar squandered by Aldermen and 
Councilmen, each mechanic and day laborer, every manufacturer and 
merchnnt, every man and woman, and child must pay— either in rents 
or in increased prices depenfling on rents. The consequences of this 
iobberv have been that the expenses of living have arisen in this city 
more than in any other large city of the Union, as is best shown by the 



124 APPENDIX. 

rate of rents ; for provisions and imported products are undoubtedly 
afforded to the wholesale dealers cheaper here than in Philadelphia or 
Boston, for instance. 

The increased cost of the consumers is in the necessary expenses of 
the retailers, and these expenses come in great part from the taxation. 
Moreover, the gradual influence of the annoyances of Few York, our 
execrable streets, the filth and odors prevaihng, the sanitary evils 
dreaded, the bad accommodations on the railroads, and the other des- 
agremens, was inevitably to force the middle classes from the city. 
The very rich could somewhat guard themselves against these evils and 
annoyances, especially by removing to the country in the summer sea- 
son ; the very poor and the laborers must remain near the market of 
labor; but persons with incomes from $1,000 to $5,000 per annum soon 
found it very injurious to their families, and too expensive to remain 
in the city, and these, by the thousands, scattered themselves in all the 
region around New York — in New Jersey, in Westchester County, on 
Long Island and Staten Island, and on the borders of the Sound. 
Here, though they must add to their rents the expenses of a daily 
journey of twenty or forty miles, and though provisions are more ex- 
pensive in the suburbs than in the city, the saving from taxation and 
increased rent, and the sanitary advantages to their families, kept them 
constant residents, and added to their numbers. 

Following them, have emigrated numbers of manufacturers who 
really belong to New York, but who find it cheaper to carry on their 
factories away from city taxation, so that the banks of the Hudson and 
the raih-oads of New Jersey find themselves more and more lined with 
huge factories, surrounded with laborers' shanties or cottages. The 
result is what we have uniformly predicted — that New York is decreas- 
ing in population, while the suburbs are increasing, and that marvellous 
growth in population, which was so long our pride, seems temporarily 
checked. Thus, in 1855, the population of New York was 629,810, and 
in 1860, 814,254, or an increase of more than five and a half per cent, 
per annum. In 1865-66, the population is only 726,386, being a de- 
crease of some 87,000 since 1860, instead of the old increase of some 
twenty-nine per cent. Brooklyn, in place of its supposed 500,000, has 
only 296,378. But the whole Metropolitan Police District, C(.ntaining 
the counties of New York, Kings, Westchester, and Eichmond, and six 
towns in Queens County, embrace a population of 1,224,879, of which 
Westchester has 101,197; Kings, 311,090; Eichmond, 28,209; and the 
six towns in Queens, 57,997. Some of the suburban villages have become 
considerable cities, thus: Morrisania has 11,691 inhabitants; Yonkers, 
12,756; Flushing, 10,813; Hempstead, 11,764 ; Newtown, 13,891 ; Oys- 
ter Bay, 9,714 ; Cortland, 9,393, and so on with others. 



APPENDIX. 125 

The foreign lorn in Few York number nearly half (313,201), and 
with their children must constitute some two- thirds of our population. 
In Brooklyn they amount to 107,851, or a less proportion. In West- 
chester they are only about one-quarter (26,394) ; in Eichmoud about 
one-third (9,142). In the matter of sexes, New York has some 38,000 
more women than men, and Brooklyn some 13,000. 

The poorer wards of this city contain enormous numbers ; thus, the 
Seventeenth has 79,563 ; the Eleventh, 58,953 ; the Twentieth, 61,884 ; 
the Eighteenth, 47,613 ; the Twenty-second, 47,361, while the w'ealthy 
Fourteenth and Fifteenth have respectively only 23,382 and 25,572 
inhabitants. 

If this exodus be not checked by an honest and faithful management 
of the city affairs. New York will be delivered up to the very rich and 
very poor, and its prosperity receive a fatal blow. 



AUTHOE'S NOTE. 



I would acknowledge the great kindness of these gentlemen in as- 
sisting me to obtain the facts for this discourse. I might name many 
others who have shown good will and given information : 

Geoegb H. Moobe, Jackson S. Sohtjltz, 

Andrew Warner, J, B. Vaenum, 

George Bancroft, Gulian C. Verplanok, 

Elisha Harris, William L. Stone, 

Charles P. Kirkland, Edward Bill, 

J. S. Homans, Horatio Allen, 

D. B. Eaton, B. F. Vabntjm, Jr., 

Brown Brothers, Maj. Gen. Barlow, 

D. T. Valentine, Henry B. Dawson. 

I have consulted freely the well-known works of Dunlap and Ham- 
mond on the Political History of New York, Dr. O'Callaghan's New 
Netherlands, and have found some valuable information in Miss Booth's 
History of the City. The publications of the New York Histoi-ical 
Society have been of constant service, and especially Benjamin F. 
Butler's Discourse on the Constitutional History of New York. The 
histories of Bancroft, Brodhead, Hildreth, Motley, and Palfrey have 
been relied upon for important statements. I must say, also, in sincer- 
ity, that no man can study any important American subject, without 
finding constant help from Appleton's New American Cyclopedia and 
Annual Cyclopaedia. These manuals are full of our national and local 
history, and their biographical sketches are ample and reliable, and 
many of them give materials nowhere else to be found in print. 

This appendix, of course, does not aim to give a complete body of 
statistics of the city ; but only to put in permanent form the chief facts 
that were furnished me up to tlie date of the Discourse, and so to con- 
tribute something towards a sketch of the present state of affairs. The 
outline of the speech of Hon. J. B. Yarnum is inserted mainly on ac- 



AUTHOE*S NOTE. 127 

count of its valuable facts, and is a fitting contribution from one of the 
worthiest members of our Historical Society. 

I am well aware that the whole subject is too great for a single 
discourse, and that a man not a native of the city labors under some 
peculiar difficulties in undertaking such a task as this ; yet both natives 
and new comers must both acknowledge that the city is constantly 
showing new growths and aspects to them. I am content to appear as 
a learner more than a master ; and I trust that friends and fellow citizens 
will deal gently with the defects of this little offering of public spirit. 

S. 0. 



NEW YORK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



A DISCOURSE 



DELITERED BEFORE THE 



New York Histoeioal Society, 



ON ITS SIXTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY, 



NOVEMBER 20, 1866. 



Rev. SAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDEE OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 



NEW YORK: 

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 

MDCCCLSTIl. 



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